Legend of the Archmage
by Advent of Shadows
Summary: With a dark past known only to a few, Naruto Uzumaki is a man shrouded in mystery. But many great heroes come from dark and mysterious pasts, and he is one of the greatest heroes of all. He is the boy who became a legend, the Archmage of Fairy Tail. Naruto/Cana
1. Fairy Tail

Summary: With a dark past known only to a few, Naruto Uzumaki is a man shrouded in mystery. But many great heroes come from dark and mysterious pasts, and he is one of the greatest heroes of all. He is the boy who became a legend, the Archmage of Fairy Tail.

Main Pairing: Naruto/Cana

Warning: This story is rated M. I'll make sure to warn you ahead of time when a scene comes up that might offend sensitive readers.

Notes: Some people expected the next Naruto/Fairy Tail story for me to update to be Archangel or the revision of Kitsune. I'm still working on both, but I had this idea, and I couldn't help myself. Now, I want to make something clear before the chapter starts.

This is not a crossover where Naruto is transported to Earthland or is reborn there. It's more like Dragon Slayer, Demon Lacrima, and Fairy Tail's Utopia with the Naruto characters born into Earthland. If you don't like stories like this, you can feel free to turn back now.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Enjoy the chapter.

* * *

**1. Fairy Tail**

_-July 4, X784_

"Wow…" Lucy Heartfilia whispered as she looked around her in awe. "This- this is really Fairy Tail."

Her eyes gleamed with trepidation. She was standing in the entrance of the guild hall of the famous mage guild, Fairy Tail. She had tried so hard to finally make it here, and now that she had finally set her eyes upon what she had dreamed of for years. It was even more amazing than she had imagined it would be.

Her heart threatened to burst from her chest. She had never been this happy in her life. She could barely even move her legs she was so overcome with joy.

Looking at all of the guild members, she noticed that they acted as if they were all part of a huge family, chatting about meaningless things with each other, laughing at one another's stories, and just having a good time.

All the way across from them was a bar that had several visible barrels of alcohol behind it. On one of the bar stools, a long haired brunette woman could be seen sitting and drinking from an entire barrel of alcohol. To her left, Lucy saw a very large man preaching about how real men should be like while flexing his insanely large muscles.

She turned around when Natsu patted her shoulder. She only saw his back however as he began walking toward the middle of the guild hall with a big goofy grin on his face.

"I'm back!" Natsu exclaimed loudly.

"Welcome back Natsu and Happy," Mirajane said as she looked over at them. Lucy looked star struck upon seeing Mirajane. She was her idol, one of the most famous, if not the most famous, females of Fairy Tail. It was hard for her to believe that Mirajane was standing right next to her with one of her usual beautiful smiles on her face.

"You overdid it again," one of the mages at a table said. "I read about the Hargeon incident in the newspaper."

Suddenly, Natsu kicked the speaker in the face.

"Bastard, that info you gave me about Salamander was fake," he said with a very annoyed expression on his face.

"Now that Natsu is back, the place might get torn apart," Mirajane said with a hint of humor in her eyes.

"M-Mirajane!" Lucy exclaimed, unable to speak anything else.

Mirajane laughed, looking at Lucy, her eyes filled with mirth. "Please, call me Mira. Everyone does."

Not trusting her mouth, Lucy only nodded.

"Good." Mira nodded back, that cheeky smile still on her face. "Are you a new mage wanting membership?" She asked.

"Yeah, that's right." Lucy answered. "I met Natsu in town and he said I'd be eligible to join."

Mira smiled so wide her eyes closed. "Yes, yes! That's great! We're always looking for new mages to join us! I'll just need you to fill out some paper work and you'll be all set."

As if on cue, most the mages in the room began to fight.

"Hey, did you say Natsu is back?" a black haired mage said, suddenly running through the doors in just his boxers. "Let's finish our fight from last time."

"Gray, have you been walking around like that?" the brunette at the bar asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Shit!" Gray just noticed his state of undress at the brunette's words.

"Why are all of the guys around undignified?" she asked with a sigh as she drank from a barrel of alcohol.

Lucy's attention suddenly went to a man that had just entered behind her.

"Yapping in the middle of the day… you're not kids, you know," a large man said, shaking his head. She recognized him as Elfman. She had seen him in Sorcerer Weekly before. "Go fight and prove your manhood!"

"Out of the way!" Natsu and Gray shouted together as the both punched him away.

Before long, Loke became involved in the fight, Mirajane was hit by a beer bottle and was bleeding a little, and tables had been knocked over.

"This ends here," the brunette from the bar said as she withdrew her cards.

"I've had it," Gray said as he put his hands in position to use his magic.

"Oh yeah!" Elfman exclaimed as his right arm appeared to be surrounded by rock.

"What a troublesome bunch," Loke said with a sigh as he prepared his Ring Magic.

"Come get me!" Natsu yelled as his hands caught on fire.

"They're going to fight with magic?" Lucy asked in shock.

"Oh, this is getting a little out of hand," Mirajane said with a small little chuckle.

"Cut it out you fools!"a huge black monster exclaimed as it appeared out of nowhere.

Immediately, everyone but Natsu cut out their magic.

"Oh, I didn't notice you around, Master," Mirajane said, immediately causing Lucy's eyes to widen dramatically.

"Ha! You guys are a bunch of scaredy cats! This match is my win!" Natsu exclaimed shortly before he was stepped on.

"A newcomer?" the massive monster asked, looking to the Lucy.

"Yes," she answered nervously.

Immediately, the monster shrunk down to normal size, becoming a short old man. "Nice to meet you. I'm the Master of Fairy Tail, Makarov."

Before anyone could say anything else, Makarov jumped off the ground and landed on the railing of the second color. "You've done it again, fools," he said in annoyance. He held up a large stack of paper in his hand. "Look at all the complaints I've received from the Council."

His eyes went to Gray. "Gray, good job on sweeping out the smuggling organization. But you walked around town naked afterwards. Then, you ran away after stealing some underwear that had been hung to dry."

"Would it have been better if I just kept walking around naked?" Gray muttered.

Then his eyes went to Elfman. "Elfman! You had a mission to escort a VIP, but you assaulted him during the mission."

"He said men are all about education," Elfman said, defending himself.

"Cana, you drank fifteen barrels of alcohol during a mission and charged it to the council," Makarov said, looking at the Card Magic user.

She just shrugged.

"Loke, you flirted with a council member's daughter, and a certain talent agency charged us for damage compensation too," Makarov said with a sigh, but Loke just grinned.

"Natsu, you destroyed the Demon Thief Family, but you also destroyed seven other houses, leveled a historical clock tower in Tully Village, burned down a church if Freesia, damaged parts of Lupnus Castle, and destroyed half of Hargeon's port," Makarov said with a frown. "And don't even get me started on the rest of you."

"Guys, the Council is angry at me all the time… but you can forget about the Council," Makarov said as he set the papers on fire and threw them at Natsu, who ate them. "Listen up. The power to ocvercome reason is born from reasoning. Magic is not a miracle. When the spirit flows within us and the spirit flow in nature connects, they will form an embodiment for the first time. You will need a strong mentality and a lot of concentration for that. I mean, pouring all of your soul into whatever you do is magic. If you keep worrying about the watchful eyes of the Council, your magic will never prosper. Don't fear the fools of the Council. Do whatever you think is right! That's the way of the Fairy Tail mages!"

The atmosphere immediately grew light and happy at that.

* * *

Things had finally died down. Everyone went back to talking and laughing with each other. Natsu and Gray were having a small argument over pretty much nothing. Cana had gone back to drinking. Elfman was flexing his muscles, trying to preach to as many people as possible of the strength of men. And Mira was sitting next to Lucy on the bar stools while Lucy went through some paperwork.

When she had finally finished, she handed it to Mira, who looked it over. Once she was done, she smiled. "Ooh, a Celestial Spirit mage. We don't see too many of them anymore." She said. "Great! Everything seems to be in order." She placed the papers onto the counter, and then took out a stamp. "What color would you like your stamp to be?"

"Pink." Lucy replied after a few moments thoughts.

Mira nodded with a smile. "Pink please." she said to the stamp. "Where would you like your stamp?"

Lucy held out her left hand, the palm facing downwards. Mira pressed the stamp down hard on her hand and removed it a moment later. A pink Fairy Tail mark was now visible on her hand. Lucy laughed happily when she saw it. "So I'm a member now!"

Mira smiled widely and nodded. Lucy jumped in the air, punching it with her fist. "So are these all the members. I'd like to meet them all."

"You probably won't meet them all for a while," Mira said thoughtfully. "The Ace of Fairy Tail, Gildarts Clive, left on a few extremely high level jobs three years ago and could easily be gone for a few more years. Another of our powerful mages is rather reclusive and uses Sleep Magic everytime he stops by the guild, so it's a challenge to see him, let alone meet him. His name is Mystogan. Then you have Laxus and the Thunder God Tribe, his so-called bodyguards. Of those, I've only seen Laxus in the last six months. They usually aid him on S-class jobs. And there are many other mages that take multiple missions on and are gone for months at a time with little down time."

"Isn't there another powerful mage in Fairy Tail," Lucy asked, remembering an article that she had read not too long ago.

"Oh, you must be talking about Naruto," Mira said with a radiant smile. "He finishes jobs quicker than most, so you'll probably see him before too long."

"He's due back today," Makarov said when Mira looked at him.

"Excellent," Mira said happily. She was not the only one that looked happy at that announcement. It seemed that many of the mages were excited by that news.

"Who exactly is Naruto?" Lucy asked curiously. "I've heard of him, but he's not in Sorcerer Weekly that much."

"Naruto is one of our strongest mages. He considers himself to be the fifth strongest mage that bears are mark," Mira answered, seeming to have expected the question. "He's never actually fought any of the mages that he considers to be stronger than him, so I'm not sure if his estimate is accurate. He is at least as strong as he thinks he is though. That much is certain."

"He does not deal with reporters though," Cana said.

"Why's that?" Lucy asked curiously.

"They keep trying to give him lame ass nicknames. Those are his words, not mind," Cana said with a chuckle. "I have to agree though. Compared to _Salamander_ Natsu and _Titania_ Erza, _Demolition Man_ Naruto is pretty lame."

"Demolition Man?" Lucy asked, unsure as to what the name could have meant.

"Naruto's magic is very destructive. The only reason that he does less damage on jobs than Natsu is because he's better at controlling his magic," Mira explained, smiling at a distant memory.

"What kind of magic does he use?" Lucy asked, wishing that they would get to the point. "Is he a Dragon Slayer like Natsu? I can't imagine a more destructive magic than his."

"You can ask him yourself," Makarov interrupted. "Naruto doesn't like it when people talk about his magic, as you girls should know."

"Right," Mira said as she and Cana looked sheepishly.

As if on cue, the doors opened and a young man entered the room.

He looked to be around twenty years old with spiky blond hair, bright blue eyes, and whisker-like marks on his cheeks. He was wearing a silver chain necklace that had a carving of the Fairy Tail logo hanging from it, a sleeveless black shirt that revealed an orange Fairy Tail mark on his right shoulder, and black pants that were tucked into a pair of black boots.

"Welcome back, Naruto," Makarov said with a wave. His welcome was soon followed by many others, causing the young man to grin.

"It's good to be back," Naruto said as he walked up to Makarov and handed him a slip of paper.

"How'd the job go?" Makarov asked curiously as he looked it over.

"Eh, it wasn't bad. I don't see why it was an S-class job though. Red Hood wasn't that strong of a guild," Naruto said with a shrug. "I guess I don't really care as long as I get paid though."

"You're familiar with Pict Magic. That's why you did not have any difficulty," Makarov said with a chuckle. "I'll get the money to you once it comes in. The Council commissioned the job, so it might be a few weeks."

"They do drag their feet," Naruto agreed. His eyes wandered to Lucy suddenly. "New member?"

"Yeah, I joined today," Lucy said cheerfully.

"That's always good to hear," Naruto said, taking a seat. "What kind of magic do you use?"

"I use Celestial Spirit Magic," Lucy answered, not noticing how Loke looked panicked at hearing that.

"Oh?" Naruto asked in interest. "That's a rare type of magic nowadays. I'm glad I'm not one, to be honest. Using a type of magic that you need some luck just to get the tools for it sounds like a pain in the ass, especially when caster types of magic allow you to just rely on skill and power."

Lucy looked a little miffed at his response, but she smiled before replying. "Well, I guess I'm lucky then. I have three of the golden keys: the Gate of the Golden Bull, the Gate of the Water Bearer, and the Gate of the Giant Crab."

"Impressive," Naruto said as he glanced at the keys on her belt. "I wish I could tell you where the others are, but I haven't heard anything about them recently."

"I want to get all twelve of them one day," Lucy said with a thoughtful smile. She then realized that she had forgotten something. "What kind of magic do you use?"

"I use seven kinds of magic," Naruto said with a chuckle. "You told me one kind of magic you can use, so I'll tell you one that I can use… Transformation Magic."

"And you tell her the one kind that you never use in fights," Cana deadpanned.

"That's not fair," Lucy said, pouting.

"I also use Requip and Sword Magic," Naruto said, hoping to placate her without revealing one of his more unusual types of magic.

"But Mira and Cana said your magic is more destructive than Natsu's," Lucy said. "None of those types of magic sound that destructive."

"Erza would take offense to that," Naruto said with a grin. "But if you really want to know what I can do, you'll have to see me in action. Until then, I'll let you keep guessing. In the meantime, I'm heading home. I want to get some rest. I'll see you guys later."

"Are you going to be leaving to go on another job soon?" Makarov asked curiously.

"No, I think I'll stick around for a little while," Naruto said as he rose to his feet and left the guild.

With that, he left the guild hall.

"Wow, he didn't stay long," Lucy said after a moment.

"He doesn't like being asked questions, even if he does like asking them," Mira said, looking at the doors just in time to see Romeo Conbolt enter the guild hall. "He might have also left because of Natsu though. They made a bet a few months ago. If Naruto beat Natsu, he couldn't challenge him to another fight for six months. Ever since then, Naruto limits the time he's around Natsu to make it easier on him."

Looking at her new friend, Lucy had to admit that he looked more relaxed since Naruto left.

"That's not why he left so quickly though," Makarov said. "He's a sociable young man, so you'll get to know him soon enough. But if a certain thing happens during a job, he always leaves the guild right after he arrives. As such, it's more than likely that he ran into his old partner."

"Who?" Lucy questioned. She noticed that Mira had gone to serve someone a drink just as Makarov began to speak, and Cana had seemingly disappeared.

The guild master's attention soon turned to Romeo as neared him and began to talk, preventing Lucy from getting an answer to her question.

* * *

Author's Note: Now, I think I should explain a few things before you read any farther.

First of all, there will be a maximum of twenty Naruto characters that make an appearance in this story. That may seem like a lot, but I don't think it's that bad.

Every Naruto character exists or existed in Earthland in this story world. However, you can pretend that they don't without much effort since they won't actually make an appearance. A few more may be mentioned, but they won't actually appear.

And finally, I feel that it's necessary to say this now. Of the Naruto characters in this story, the two most important ones are Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha. Many people don't like Sasuke. I don't either, to be honest. But he is Naruto's rival and will play a critical role in this story.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	2. A New Mission

**2. A New Mission**

_-July 5, X784_

Naruto took a deep breath as he looked around him. He was standing in East Forest, but that particular spot was not much of a forest anymore. He was standing in a small crater. Around that crater, it looked like someone had forcefully created trenches, knocking over and destroying trees without discretion to do so. An all destroying force had passed through the area where the trenches were.

Such was to be expected when Naruto trained.

His hand went to his pocket and suddenly removed a Micro-Communication Lacrima as it pulsed.

"What do you need, Old Man?" Naruto asked as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

"Something came up. I was hoping you could stop by the guild so that I could explain it in person," Makarov said through the lacrima.

"Is it a job?" Naruto asked with a frown.

"Yes, it is," Makarov responded in a regretful tone. "It's of the utmost importance. I would only trust this to Gildarts, Laxus, Mystogan, or you. Unfortunately, you are the only S-class mage in town right now, which means that I can't even send Erza with you."

"I'll be there shortly," Naruto said before he deactivated the lacrima. He closed his eyes and utilized Requip, changing into a clean set of clothes and a long crimson jacket with black flames at the bottom of it.

With that, Naruto began to run towards the guild. If Makarov had a job that he would not have trusted Erza with, then that meant that it was a very difficult S-class job. It was not SS-class due to the fact that not even Laxus and Mystogan were cleared to do SS-class jobs, but S-class was a rather broad range of skill and difficulty. There was a reason that Phantom Lord had a team composed of four S-class mages. It was the only way to guarantee that they could succeed on the more difficult S-class jobs.

Before too long, Naruto reached the guild and opened the doors, walking casually towards the bar where Makarov was sitting.

"Naruto, are you going somewhere?" Mira asked with a frown.

"Maybe," Naruto said with a shrug. "How's everything going here?"

"Fine," Mira said, still frowning at Naruto's avoidance. "Natsu and Lucy left this morning though. It looks like they've formed a team. I was surprised when Natsu said he was going to get Lucy to do the job with him."

"Natsu will be Natsu," Naruto said with a chuckle as he made his way to Makarov.

"Follow me," Makarov said before he headed down to the basement.

Once they were down there, Makarov took a deep breath.

"What do you know of Orochimaru?" he asked in a serious tone befitting of one of the Ten Wizard Saints.

"I know about his past in detail. Don't forget who I am," Naruto answered, just as serious. "But I know you aren't asking me to take him down. Even if Laxus, Mystogan, and I all worked together, he'd probably kick our asses. Only you or Gildarts would stand a chance. Well, Jiraiya probably would as well…."

"That's true," Makarov said, sighing. "I'm glad that you know the truth about him, at least. This will make explaining the job easier."

"What exactly is this job?" Naruto asked with a frown. Anything related to Orochimaru was not good news.

"We have evidence that Orochimaru is forming a guild. There is no proof that it is a dark guild, so we cannot do anything to him. As far as the Magic Council is concerned, Orochimaru is a law abiding citizen. However, Jiraiya has discovered two of Orochimaru's bases. He said that Orochimaru is not at either one. In fact, he was seen in Era a few days ago and should be busy with the Magic Council for the next week. Jiraiya will investigate one of the bases, and I would like you to investigate the other. If we can prove that he is up to no good, the Magic Council will have to act," Makarov explained.

"So I need to investigate one of his bases, try to find proof that he's evil, and hope that I don't end up running into Orochimaru or his henchmen?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," Makarov answered bluntly. "If you encounter his _henchmen_, as you so aptly call them, you can incapacitate them. He can't actually report us as doing anything wrong because his bases look like they belong to dark guilds. Any guild that discovered them would at least try to find out who the bases belonged to."

"I'd like to form a team for this," Naruto said as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Orochimaru isn't someone that anyone can take lightly, as you well know. He wouldn't leave bases empty. Not if they had anything incriminating, at least. I'll need some allies in case it turns out that the people he leaves to watch over the base are strong. Four or five borderline S-class mages would be able to defeat me if they worked well together."

"You can form a team," Makarov answered with a nod. "You don't have a great selection, unfortunately. Laxus and the Thunder God Tribe are gone- not that they would be happy to work with you in the first place. Mystogan and Erza are both doing S-class jobs, and Natsu left this morning with Lucy, as you heard from Mira. If Mira was still in fighting shape, I'd recommend her, but she hasn't fought since before you joined Fairy Tail."

"I wasn't thinking about any of them," Naruto said, though he had to admit that Mira would have been an appealing option if she was still Demon Mira. He had heard stories about her from her fighting days. "Elfman, Macao, and Wakaba would probably be my best bet. Macao and Wakaba aren't as strong as Natsu or Gray, but their experience and the fact that they don't rush into fights would make them good allies."

"Elfman is a good choice. He helped you become an S-class mage last December, after all," Makarov said with a nod. "But Macao is pretty banged up from his last job, and Wakaba is on a solo job today."

"I see," Naruto said with a frown. No S-class mages were available, the Thunder God Tribe was unavailable, Natsu was unavailable, and Macao and Wakaba were unavailable. Gray was not a good option due to the fact that his magic had a tendency to destroy anything that Gray made. He could not actually think of anyone else that was actually strong enough to handle an S-class job without being needed to be watched constantly. Another choice suddenly presented itself: Cana Alberona. She was one of the strongest mages in the guild, after all.

"I'll bring Cana with me too. I shouldn't need anyone else, unless Orochimaru is there. But if he's there, then it doesn't matter how many people I bring. The result would be the same," Naruto said.

"Agreed," Makarov said with a grim nod as he handed him a folded up piece of paper. "This is a map showing the two bases. Your target is the one marked with the number one. Good luck."

"Sure thing," Naruto said as he put the piece of paper in his pocket and made his way upstairs, heading to find Cana and Elfman. Truthfully, he had a bad feeling that this job was going to turn out bad, but he had no intention of sharing that belief with anyone else.

* * *

Naruto, Elfman, and Cana were walking through the forest hours later.

Orochimaru's base was in a valley in the mountains to the northeast of Crocus, the trio had been forced to take a magic vehicle off-road as far as they could get before the terrain grew too treacherous for them to travel any further. At that point, they had been forced to walk.

Naruto could have cleared a path through the forest with his magic, but they wanted to be more subtle until they arrived.

"What can you tell me about Orochimaru?" Cana suddenly asked. "You said you'd tell us more about him when we started getting near our target."

Elfman looked interested as well, so Naruto knew that he had no choice.

"You've heard of Jiraiya and Orochimaru before, haven't you?" he asked as he momentarily closed his eyes.

"Yeah, they trained under one of the Ten Wizard Saints, Hiruzen Sarutobi, when they were young and ended up joining Fairy Tail when they were around ten years old. They are considered to be Fairy Tail's all time strongest team, even surpassing Master Makarov's old team," Cana answered.

"That's right," Naruto said with a nod. "I wouldn't call them a team though. Jiraiya liked to travel, so they did not work together nearly as much as they were apart. He trained a few students during his travelling, and one of those students went by the name of Minato Namikaze… my father."

Cana and Elfman looked shocked to hear that. Naruto had never told anyone about his past before.

"Jiraiya is my godfather. He taught me to control my magic, along with how to use minor forms of magic, like Requip, Sword Magic, Transformation, and Thought Projection," Naruto explained. "Anyways, my godfather says that Orochimaru was always a little twisted and relished in taking lives a little too much. At some point, he developed a unique spell… Take Over: Mage Soul."

"Mage Soul?" Cana and Elfman both asked. The name sounded wrong for some reason.

"Take Over: Mage Soul is used on other mages. It lets the user take over another mage's body. Once used, the user assumes the same age as the victim though they don't actually take on their physical appearance. That's not the bad part though. The bad part is that the user gains the victim's abilities as a mage as if they were their own. For example, if he used it on Natsu, he would gain Fire Dragon Slayer Magic and look younger than me, even though he's actually older than Gildarts," Naruto explained with a grave look on his face.

Horrified. That was the only word that could describe how Cana and Elfman felt upon hearing Naruto's explanation.

"We have no idea exactly when he created the spell, but we know for certain that he created it over twenty years ago. He is limited to using it once every three years due to the strain that the spell puts on the user's body, mind, and soul," Naruto added. "No one knew about the spell until Orochimaru attempted to use his magic on Gildarts twenty years ago."

"He did what?" Cana asked harshly, anger clear in her eyes. The reaction piqued Naruto's interest, but he did not comment on it.

"If it had worked, you would never have met Gildarts. The victim ceases to live after it's used, though I was told that they don't actually die either. They're somewhere between life and death as long as Orochimaru remains alive," Naruto said, shaking his head. "Gildarts is the only mage that I know of with more destructive magic than I do. He can destroy incoming spells with his magic, and that's exactly what he did when Orochimaru attempted to use the spell. Because of how surprised he looked when it failed, the Old Man thinks that he had used it at least once before without failure."

"That magic is evil," Elfman said, looking shaken. Given that he used Take Over Magic, hearing about such an evil version of it bothered him immensely.

"How powerful could he be now?" Cana asked with a frown. "If he's been in possession of this magic for the last twenty plus years, then he's probably used it at least seven times. For all we know, he could have gained mastery over seven different kinds of magic from it."

"And he was named one of the Ten Wizard Saints when he was not much older than I am," Naruto added. "Trust me when I say that he's too powerful for anyone but the Old Man, Gildarts, or someone of similar strength. Jiraiya could probably at least fight him to a standstill too. Of course, then there's the issue of what would happen even if he was defeated. If the Magic Council was aware of his true nature, they would probably issue a _kill on sight_ order for Rune Knights and mages alike. But he's still one of the Ten Wizard Saints, and he is not recognized as a criminal. So if he was beaten, then we would have to just let him go and leave it at that."

"That isn't right," Cana said in disbelief. "How could that be possible?"

"We are trying to get proof that he is a dark mage so that we can change that," Naruto said, nodding in agreement with her. He had reacted similarly. "If this goes south and he is there, you are to leave my behind so that I can hold him off while you return to the guild."

"You can't be serious!" Cana and Elfman both exclaimed, shocked and angered by his words.

"I am not," Naruto said as he shot them a look. "He's supposed to be in Era, so we should be fine, but I would rather die fighting him than allow him to get my comrades. The worst that he can do is kill me. From what I've heard about him, he's probably used Take Over: Mage Soul once every three years since he created it, meaning that he won't be able to use it again until next year. So he would have to kill me or keep me prisoner for half a year. If he left me alive, you'd have plenty of time to rescue me. This is just a worst case scenario plan though. The odds of it actually happening are about the same as Gray going twenty-four hours without stripping."

That actually got a chuckle out of Cana and Elfman, forced as it was.

"Now, we need to hurry up. We're burning daylight," Naruto said, moving a bit faster.

With that, the trio sped up their pace.

* * *

They finally reached the valley a couple hours later and had been walking towards a small building that seemed to be made of gray stone. It was a short building, though it was easy to see that there were stairs going down at the entrance.

"I guess it's underground," Naruto said as they reached the base. "Before we enter, I want you guys to understand something. If we have to fight, we need to go all out. Of course, I would advise that you be careful not to bring the roof down on our heads, but we can't hold back if we have to fight Orochimaru's minions."

"Right," Cana said, glancing at Elfman.

"I understand," Elfman said, looking down. They understood that the message was more related to him. Elfman still relied on Beast Arm instead of the Beast Soul branch of Take Over, despite the fact that Naruto had helped him learn to use and control full body transformations. They had never touched the true Beast Soul transformation for the same reason that Elfman disliked using full body transformations though. He was hard for him to use it because of the memories that came with it.

"Let's go," Naruto said as they entered the base.

His suspicions that something was wrong began to grow as they walked through the base, searching room by room. It was not as if a trap was inside the base.

In fact, there was nothing in the base but those three mages.

They searched throughout the base for close to an hour returned to the valley. Naruto foresaw two possibilities. The base had either just been built and Orochimaru had not had time to put anything in there… or they had been trying to lure someone there in the hopes that they would investigate it.

He decided that the latter was correct when they stepped foot in the valley and saw two men standing about a hundred yards away.

The first man had pale skin, shoulder length white hair, vivid green eyes, and two red dots on his forehead.

The second man had spiky orange hair and bright red eyes.

Both men looked to be a couple years older than Naruto and were dressed identically to each other. It appeared that they were wearing a type of uniform composed of tan short sleeve shirts that bore the emblem of a snake eating its tail on the front of them, long sleeve black undershirts, black pants, and black boots.

"Kimimaro, do you recognize any of them?" the second one asked.

"No, I do not," the first one answered, shaking his head. "They are not among the ones that Master Orochimaru forbade us from killing. You may let loose, Jugo."

"Very well," the second one said.

"This isn't good," Naruto muttered as he felt the magical power of the second one increase exponentially.

"Shit," Cana muttered, sensing the power as well.

"We'll show them who the man is," Elfman said as he cracked his knuckles.

"I want you two to take the orange haired guy. I'll handle the other one. He seems to be the leader of this pair," Naruto said as his magic came to life, causing the ground where he was standing to crack.

"Right," Cana said with a nod.

"On it," Elfman said confidently.

With that, the Fairy Tail mages moved to engage their adversaries.

* * *

Author's Note: It looks like the first chapter was received pretty well.

Next chapter, you'll finally get to see Naruto's magic in action, along with finding out what it is called. I think many of you will be surprised to find out what he can do.

As you all should know by now, Naruto, Jiraiya, Sasuke, Orochimaru, Kimimaro, and Jugo are definitely characters for this story. As I made it clear that Orochimaru is forming a guild, I don't think it'll be too hard to figure out who will be in it. I decided that there will be six Naruto characters in Orochimaru's guild, including Kimimaro and Jugo. That leaves me with a maximum of ten more Naruto characters at my disposal. I don't have any concrete plans for those characters yet.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.


	3. Unleashed

**3. Unleashed**

_-July 5, X784_

Jugo was the first enemy that the Fairy Tail mages made contact with. He had transformed into… something. Naruto was unsure how to describe it other than to say that the man looked like a demon.

Whatever the man's ability was, Naruto noted that he seemed to be able to grow protrusions from his legs and shoot pure magical power from them, allowing him to close the distance to reach them in a single jump.

Naruto hated to do it, but he moved to deal with Kimimaro instead of helping Elfman and Cana. As much as he wanted to help them against the demonic looking man, he needed to deal with his partner. Plus, he had faith in Elfman and Cana.

Like Jugo, Naruto jumped all the way to his enemy in a single move. Unlike Jugo, however, he managed it in a way that looked like he did not use magic at all. Provided that one ignored the shattered ground where he had been standing, at least.

Upon reaching Kimimaro, Naruto entered a combat stance.

"I do not know if I should be impressed that you knew that I was a more pressing danger or insulted that you thought it was a good idea to face me alone when you have two comrades fighting my partner, who is not nearly as powerful as I am," Kimimaro said, keeping his eyes trained on Naruto.

"I am Naruto Uzumaki, S-class mage of Fairy Tail," Naruto said as a golden aura of magic surrounded his right hand. "And you misunderstand. The reason that I am having both of them fight your friend at the same time is because I am stronger than both of them combined."

He suddenly swiped his hand through the air, creating a chain that had a claw at the end of it. It grabbed into Kimimaro's ankle before he could react, and Naruto used it to throw the mage directly above them in the air before dispelling the chain.

"Better luck next time," Naruto said as he allowed his magic to flow freely into the ground around him. In the blink of an eye, the ground within twenty yards of him in all directions was covered in cracks. He stomped his right foot suddenly, and entire pieces of broken up ground were sent flying up at Kimimaro at the speed one would expect if a rock was thrown with all of a man's strength.

"That won't work on me," Kimimaro said as bone began to protrude from his right palm. It quickly moved out of his hand, revealing a long sword made of bone. What interested Naruto most was that his hand was not even bleeding afterwards.

With an incredible display of swordsmanship, Kimimaro used his bone sword to deflect or break every single piece of earth that Naruto had sent up to him.

The bone user landed on the ground elegantly and looked at Naruto with narrowed eyes.

"I thought that was Earth Magic at first, but it clearly isn't. If it was, you could have made each piece of earth as hard as iron. Furthermore, you stomped the ground when you sent those pieces of earth up towards me. That's not something an Earth Mage does," Kimimaro said watching Naruto for the slightest sign of movement. "What kind of magic is that?"

"You first," Naruto said as he clenched his fist tightly.

"I use a Lost Magic known as Dead Bone Pulse," Kimimaro said, preparing to attack. "It allows me to control the density, thickness, and growth of my bones. There is nothing harder than my bones when I use my magic."

"My magic isn't Lost, but that's because I'm the one that discovered it in the first place," Naruto said with a grin. He suddenly stepped forward and leapt towards him. In mid-air, he used Requip, and a large two-handed sword appeared in his hands. Its black blade, silver guard, black wrapped hilt, and silver pommel gave off a menacing aura.

Naruto's sword and Kimimaro's bone sword were about to meet when he gave his answer.

"I use Shockwave Magic."

When their swords met, Kimimaro learned why it was a bad idea to block Naruto's sword without Sword Magic of his own.

A shockwave formed at the exact spot that Naruto's sword met Kimimaro's bone sword. The shockwave was powerful enough to break the bone sword and send Kimimaro flying backwards.

"I have the ability to generate and control shockwaves. Most people don't stand a chance against me with a sword because of my ability to use Sword Magic that is directly related to my Shockwave Magic," Naruto said, making his sword return to the pocket dimension with Requip. "I don't really rely on swords though. My magic is far more devastating without one."

Right after he said that, Naruto lifted his right foot and stomped it to the ground.

Kimimaro suddenly felt sick as he began to shake on the inside, physically. Within moments, he began to vomit.

"That was pretty easy. Just by stomping the ground, I can create a shockwave in the ground. I can then control it and actually make it enter a person's body so long as they are touching the ground. After that, I can control exactly where the shockwave goes within them. I can make someone vomit uncontrollably with it… I can cause someone unfathomable pain by focusing the shockwave on an old injury or on an internal organ… or I can disrupt a person's balance. I might be able to do other things with it, but controlling it isn't easy," Naruto said as he walked towards him. "I'm not an easy person to beat in a one on one fight, especially if you've never encountered me before."

"You're strong," Kimimaro said as he rose to his feet. "But I'm stronger."

"We'll see," Naruto said as he thrust his palm towards the bone user. In an instant, a shockwave shot from his palm and slammed into Kimimaro, sending him flying back.

He recovered easily enough with a flip, and it looked as though he was not even affected by it.

"If I increase the density and thickness of my bones, your shockwaves will be useless against me," Kimimaro stated.

"That's what you think," Naruto said with a grin. His grin faltered as he sent another shockwave through the ground and tried to send it through Kimimaro's body.

He began to curse himself for revealing how the spell worked as he tried to figure out another way to beat him.

* * *

As soon as Jugo landed and Naruto jumped towards Kimimaro to begin their fight, Elfman and Cana sprung into action.

"Heaven, Reverse Death, and Mountain," Cana said as she spread three of her cards out in her right hand as they glowed with magical power. "Summoned Lightning." Suddenly, a dozen beams of lightning shot from the card, all closing in on Jugo and striking him.

Jugo hissed in pain and looked at Cana murderously, clearly displeased with being electrocuted. He did not get the chance to attack her, however.

"Beast Arm: Black Bull," Elfman said as his right arm took on the appearance of a large, muscular arm covered in black fur. He then ran up to Jugo and punched him in the face as hard as he could.

It did not knock him far away, but it gave Cana an opportunity to attack again.

"Wind Edge," she said as she swiped two cards through the air, causing a sudden gust of wind to pick up and slam into the downed opponent. It was strong enough to send him rolling across the ground a ways.

But then he just stood up, acting as though nothing had happened.

The next thing Elfman and Cana knew, the former was flying into the latter.

Jugo moved in front of Elfman with alarming speed and punched him in the stomach. His punch was aided by a protrusion growing out of his elbow and expelling pure magical power to propel his fist forward, similar to what he did to jump a far distance earlier.

Cana had been unable to dodge the flying man, which resulting in them both being knocked down.

"He's a tough one," Cana muttered as she rose to her feet. She paled when she saw that Jugo's right arm was transforming. Instead of simply being a demonic looking arm, he now had an axe blade on the underside of his forearm.

"Beast Arm: Iron Bull," Elfman said suddenly as he rose to his feet and saw his enemy's arm. Seeing as Iron Bull was one of his best Beast Arm spells for defense, it was an obvious response.

He suddenly pushed Cana out of the way when Jugo jumped towards them and swung the axe down at the spot that she had been standing in.

Elfman had managed to block the attack with his iron arm, but it still hurt, showing exactly how strong his opponent was.

Cana took a deep breath as she watched Jugo forcing Elfman's arm down with the axe blade on his arm. She saw an opening in Jugo's defenses while Elfman was struggling with him, so she took it.

"Explosion," Cana said as she threw a card at Jugo. It hit him and attached to his shoulder. It then proceeded to explode, sending him flying off to the side.

"He's too strong for Beast Arm," Elfman grumbled as his arm returned to normal. His arm was not cut or broken, but a red mark where the axe blade had hit his transformed arm was present.

"You need to use a full body transformation," Cana said with a frown. "It's the only way."

"It's not that easy," Elfman said with a frown. "He'll cut through my arms with his axe blade if I try to use Beast Soul. Iron Bull is my toughest Take Over, and he was man enough to injure my arm when I was using it."

"I don't suppose you can use Take Over to copy his arm, can you?" Cana asked with a frown.

"I don't think so," Elfman admitted. "That's Demon Transformation Magic. Mira fought a user of it before."

"Of course," Cana muttered. Shaking her head, she cleared her mind. "Elfman, use a full body transformation. Turn into something strong. I'll distract him. Once I do, I want you to try to grab hold of him. If you can, crush him.

"Beast Soul: Rock Golem," Elfman said, liking the plan. Within moments, he looked like he was made completely from rock.

"Incineration Blast," Cana said as she removed four cards and showed them to the approaching Jugo. Her cards lit up with magical power before a huge fireball shot from the cards, striking him in the face.

Using impressive speed, Elfman rushed towards Jugo, spun around him, and wrapped his arms around the man's chest.

Jugo immediately began to struggle, but Elfman held on tight.

"I can't hold him for much longer. Show him you're the man," Elfman said, trying to hold the demonic looking man still.

"I'm not a man," Cana said, shaking her hand. "Lightning, Reverse Tower, and Lovers," she said a moment later as she revealed three cards to Jugo. "Jolt of Fate." A blast of lightning shot from the cards and struck Jugo, electrocuting him. Due to Elfman's current form, he was unaffected by the lightning.

"Can you put him to sleep," Elfman said as Jugo started to try to fight back again.

"Oh… yeah, I can do that," Cana said sheepishly as she removed her _Sleep_ card. You might want to close your eyes. If you see it when I activate it, it will put you to sleep too." The moment that Elfman closed his eyes, she showed it to Jugo, and he slumped over, asleep. His transformation ended the moment that he fell asleep.

Sighing in relief, Cana put the card away and started flipping through her cards, trying to find something to bind Jugo with so that Elfman could let go of the sleeping man.

* * *

Naruto found himself on the defensive as Kimimaro rushed towards him, growing three bones spikes out of his forearms so that his punches would core Naruto if they hit.

Along with having a rather destructive form of magic, Naruto was skilled in hand-to-hand combat, allowing him to dodge every attack that Kimimaro threw at him. He even threw a punch of his own.

One punch was all he was willing to try though.

The moment that his fist made contact with Kimimaro's body, pain shot through his arm. It felt like he had increased the density, thickness, and overall hardness of his bones to the point that normal attacks would be useless against him. It was an impenetrable armor.

Naruto finally decided that he had dodged enough and released a powerful shockwave from his right hand that sent Kimimaro flying back.

"You're pretty good," Naruto said as he lifted his arms up, letting his hands fall and hit his shoulders. "But let's see how you like this.

Suddenly, his Chain Magic activated, and he brought two chains down upon Kimimaro, swinging them with incredible force. It looked like there was a grappling hook on the end of each chain, but that was not the only thing that was special about them.

Kimimaro narrowly dodged the attack, but everywhere that the chain made contact with the ground was destroyed. It was as though a shockwave was produced from every link of the chain upon contact.

"You won't be able to beat me," Kimimaro stated as he lifted his right hand toward Naruto. "It just won't happen."

Suddenly, the first digit on each of the fingers of his right hand emerged through the skin and shot at Naruto.

"Wave," Naruto said as he jumped and delivered a spinning kick, sending a powerful shockwave from his foot. The bone projectiles were sent flying back at Kimimaro when the shockwave hit them. "I guess I'm going to need to finish this."

"You may talk big, but you are merely decent," Kimimaro said, unamused.

"Rush," Naruto said with a smile.

In one instant, Naruto was standing fifty feet away from Kimimaro. In the next, he was standing right next to him with his fist buried in the bone user's stomach.

Kimimaro coughed blood as he experienced pain and was sent flying back. Even though he had been using what he considered an impenetrable armor, Naruto had managed to injure him.

"Don't underestimate my shockwaves," Naruto said as he extended his right hand toward Kimimaro and grasped his wrist with his left hand. In front of his hand, it looked as though air was being compressed, but it was really compressed Shockwave Magic. "You didn't think I could generate shockwaves with my fist earlier, did you? It's something I learned to do after I met a dragon slayer. But that's enough chit chat. This is my Shattering Shock Blast. I look forward to fighting you again. Hopefully, your bones are strong enough to stop this from crippling you."

Suddenly, the compressed Shockwave Magic was released forward in a condensed blast, hitting Kimimaro and sending him out of sight. He flew into the forest, and every tree that he came near was obliterated by the powerful shockwave. If not for Kimimaro's unique ability, the spell would have shattered most of his skeletal system. It was not a spell that was generally used against humans.

Once his enemy was dealt with, Naruto began to examine his right hand. His tolerance for pain was high enough that it was not bad, but at least one of his knuckles was still broken from when he punches Kimimaro the first time.

"It should be fine when we get the guild, at least," he said, grimacing as he clenched his fist.

He turned to see how Cana and Elfman were doing and saw that they were moving towards him.

"Naruto, what should we do with that guy over there?" Cana asked, pointing back to where they fought and tied up Jugo.

"Leave him," Naruto said, shaking his head. "We need to get back to the guild. This was obviously a trap, and I don't feel like dealing with anymore of his minions. That last guy was pretty tough. If he hadn't been underestimating me, I might have had trouble walking away."

"If Orochimaru's making a guild of people like this, we may have trouble," Cana said with a sigh. "We may have won, but there were three of us and two of them."

"That's very true," Naruto said as extended his right hand to the forest where they had entered the valley from. A concentrated ball of Shockwave Magic formed before releasing itself in the form of a powerful shockwave that cleared a path for them. "But what you're forgetting is that they actually weren't that skilled. I could tell that the guy you were fighting was a berserker. And the guy that I was fighting could control the strength of his bones, but he didn't appear to be that skilled at actually using it in combat… yet."

Cana and Elfman both looked worried at that, but nothing else was said as the trio ran towards the path that Naruto had cleared and made their way toward the guild.

* * *

**Guild Card Corner**

Name: Naruto Uzumaki

Age: 19

Magic: 

~Shockwave Magic- the ability to generate and control shockwaves.

~Chain Magic- the ability to form chains made from magic for a variety of different purposes.

~Regeneration Magic- the ability to use magic to heal one's self. It cannot be used on other people.

~Sword Magic: Shockwave- the ability to utilize Shockwave Magic though a sword.

~Requip- the ability to change weapons or clothes at will instantly. Naruto is not good enough with it to change clothes during battle, and he only has two swords in his pocket dimension, the Adamantine Great Sword and the Ebony Longsword.

~Transformation- the ability to take on the appearance of another person

~Thought Projection- the ability to create an intangible copy of the user that can interact with the environment physically and pass information instantly to the user.

Likes: Ramen

Dislikes: Slavery and Dark Mages.

* * *

Author's Note: This chapter was more fun to write than I expected, despite having trouble with Cana's magic at first.

I explained Naruto's magic in the above section, so I won't say anything more on it right now. I will say that Kimimaro's magic is idential to his kekkei genkai in Naruto, which is why I called it Dead Bone Pulse. Jugo's magic is identical to his Sage Transformation ability in Naruto, but I changed its name and what causes it due to the lack of natural energy in Earthland.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.


	4. Downtime

**4. Downtime**

_-July 6, X784_

Naruto, Elfman, and Cana ended up getting a little off course and spent the night in Onibus instead of immediately going back to the guild. It would have been well into the night if they had headed straight to Magnolia anyways, so they took the magic vehicle to Magnolia in the morning.

"Don't tell anyone about the true nature job," Naruto said as they neared the guild hall. "You can say that it was an S-class job, and you can say that we fought a couple of strong mages while investigating a possible dark guild base. But you are not to mention anything about Orochimaru."

"We don't want that getting out," Cana said, agreeing with him. Elfman nodded as well. Given that Orochimaru was not a known criminal, broadcasting the nature of the job would have been problematic.

"I'll fill the Old Man in on everything that happened, and I'll see what he wants to do about payment. We investigated the building for him, and he's not going to make us go home empty-handed after it," Naruto said.

That was all that was said before they entered the guild hall.

As always, Naruto was greeted by quite a few people upon entering. Whereas Mysotgan was reclusive, Laxus was arrogant, and Erza was feared, Naruto was an S-class mage that interested with the guild much like Gildarts: he was just one of the guys. It had the result of making him one of the most popular mages in the guild.

"I'll catch up with you guys later. I need to see the Old Man," Naruto said with a grin and a wave as he made his way over to Makarov.

"How'd it go?" Makarov asked curiously.

In response, Naruto removed a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Makarov.

"I see," Makarov said as he finished reading it. It explained everything that happened, though it lacked details. "The same thing happened at the other one, but there were four there."

"Is he alright," Naruto asked quietly.

"Yeah, he's fine," Makarov said with a chuckle. "If you don't mind I'd like you to hang around town for a while. There's another meeting coming up in Clover with the various guild masters in the area. I'd like you to come with me. It'll be two days from now. Before the actual meeting, I'd like to talk to Goldmine and Bob about the situation, and I'd prefer that you and your godfather both be there."

"Yeah, that would be fine with me," Naruto said with a nod. "I'm working on a new piece of magic anyways, so staying in town will be fine. What about payment for the job?"

"I'm paying Cana's bar tab, and I will let you and Elfman split half a million jewels. It's not much compared to most S-class jobs, but I can't afford to pay the normal fee if I have to keep having you do jobs like this," Makarov said.

"Keep my share," Naruto said, shaking his head. "I've done fifteen S-class jobs since becoming an S-class mage. I won't need any more money for a while. I already paid my rent for seven years in advance and still have enough money for utilities, food, and anything else I should need."

"Why would you pay your rent for seven years in advance?" Makarov asked, surprised.

"I have no idea," Naruto said with a shrug. "It can't hurt though, can it?"

"No, I suppose not," Makarov said with a chuckle. "In other news, I heard about Natsu's job with Lucy not long before you showed up. It's a pretty entertaining story, if I do say so myself."

"I'm all ears," Naruto said with a grin. Fairy Tail stories were the best.

* * *

Naruto stayed in the guild hall for a few hours after he arrived back, spending time and catching up with different members of the guild.

He was just preparing to leave to get some training in when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Turning around, he looked to see who it was and saw Mira, looking as though she was displeased by something.

"Hey Mira, do you need something?" he asked.

"Can I talk to you in private?" she asked in a tone that made it clear that it was not actually a question.

"Sure," Naruto said as he began to walk towards the doors. "It's a bit too crowded here."

"Very well," Mira said as she followed him outside.

Once outside, the pair went behind the guild hall where they would not be seen. It would be difficult for anyone to eavesdrop on them as well due to the noises coming from the guild hall.

"Naruto, why did you bring Elfman with you?" Mira asked. "I know you took him and Cana on an S-class job, and I know that he had to fight a mage that was at the same level as an S-class mage. I know that you weren't here when… _that_happened, but I also know that you're aware of the bad memories associated with S-class jobs. So why did you bring him with you?"

"Do not talk to me about bad memories," Naruto said with eyes that shocked Mira. They were the eyes of a man that had seen true horrors. "Every time I see a dark mage, I experience memories that you cannot even begin to imagine. If I shied away from every incident where I could possible meet a dark mage, I would never have a chance to move on. Why is it that you don't want to give Elfman the opportunity to move on? Yes, I took him on his first S-class job since your last job, but he handled it just fine. He is stronger than you realize. You probably don't know this, but he has been able to successfully use full body transformations for the last seven months. He doesn't like using them because of what happened in the past, but he can do it now."

"I'm sorry," Mira said as she looked down. "I didn't realize…."

"Don't worry about it," Naruto said as he turned his back to her. "I'm just a little touchy on certain subjects."

"What have you gone through?" Mira asked, though her voice was so quiet that Naruto was not sure if she was talking to her or herself.

"Have you ever heard of the _Incident of the Seventh Tower_?" Naruto asked, glancing over his shoulder.

Mira looked deep in thought for a moment before she shook her head. "I've never heard of it. Should I have?"

"No… no one should ever speak of it," Naruto said before he walked off. "I'll see you later."

With that, he left a confused Mira standing behind the guild.

* * *

Naruto managed to reach the East Forest about fifteen minutes after his conversation with Mira. Unlike when he trained before the last job, he was using a clearing to train in. His Shockwave Magic could reduce trees to nothingness when he focused on training it, which is why he never used it in clearings. He actually tried to keep all shockwave training in a few different areas so that he did not clear out the entire forest after only a couple years.

Many mages relied on a single type of magic. Macao only used Purple Flare, Wakaba only used Smoke Magic, Natsu only used Fire Dragon Slayer Magic, Gray only used Ice-Make, Cana only used Card Magic, Elfman only used Take Over, and even Rock Iron Jura of Lamia Scale only used Earth Magic.

But there were other mages that relied on at least two types of magic. Bisca used Requip and Guns Magic, Erza used Requip and Sword Magic, Gildarts used Crash and Disassembly Magic, and Makarov mainly relied on Titan Magic and Light Magic but could also use Wind Magic, Fire Magic, Ice Magic, Maximum Defense Seals, Requip, and a variety of lesser used types of magic. That was not even counting the Master of Fairy Tail's ability to use spells like Fairy Tail.

Of course, he was not aware of every form of magic the mages in his guild were capable of, but he generally knew what most of them relied on the most.

The types of magic that Naruto relied on in combat were Shockwave Magic, Sword Magic, and Chain Magic. Regeneration Magic, despite how it sounded, was not normally useful for combat. He could use it without it draining much of his magical power, but it only made him heal faster, not instantly. As such, it was better used in his downtime.

When it came right down to it, Naruto only really used Shockwave Magic when fighting. His Sword Magic was simply a different application of his Shockwave Magic. While his Chain Magic was rather powerful as well, it was more of a trick that he kept up his sleeve. He rarely used it offensively in fights, instead using it for aerial maneuvers or to bind enemies after they were defeated.

Naruto had no intention of being known for only using one type of magic.

That was what had brought him to that clearing, working on a magic that did not even exist outside of his mind. It was derived from another form of magic and would not gain him any notoriety as the inventor of a world changing form of magic, but it would enable him to become a greater mage than he already was.

Before he could really get to work on it, he sensed the presence of another mage nearing him.

Turning around, Naruto was surprised to see that Cana was entering the clearing.

"How did you find me?" he asked curiously.

In response, Cana held up a card that showed a chibi-style drawing of him with his name above it. There also seemed to be an arrow on the card that was pointing at him.

"It's a tracking card," Cana explained. "I can use it to find you wherever you are."

"That's handy," Naruto said with a smile. He was truly impressed in the younger mage's abilities. Card Magic was impressive, though it was such a complicated magic that only a skilled mage could actually use it to its full capabilities. "So what did you need me for?"

Cana opened her mouth to speak, but she hesitated. Looking at her, Naruto did not see the confident Fairy Tail mage that he knew Cana as. She looked anxious and vulnerable, in fact. Her hesitation did not last long though. "I want your help."

"You'll always have it," Naruto said, his blue eyes making contact with her brown ones. "You're one of my best friends. If you need help, just say the word and you'll have it. I just need to know what you need from me."

"I want you to make me strong," Cana said, closing her eyes. "Out of all of the S-class mages in Fairy Tail, you were a member before being promoted the shortest. I need to become an S-class mage." She opened her eyes at that point. "You are one of the strongest mages I know. If anyone can make me strong enough to become one, it's you. Please help me."

Naruto looked at her carefully, not saying a word. His silence only lasted for a minute, though it was the longest minute in Cana's life. "You're wrong. I'm not the best option. I use caster type magic, and you use holder type magic. Because of that, I'll never be able to teach you as well as someone like Mystogan would since aspects of his magic could be adapted to fit your magic. He's not the teaching type, of course, but that's not the point."

Cana looked down at that, thinking that he was going to refuse.

"You are not the only one training. I won't be able to help you constantly since I'll be busy working on something new. Also, you won't be allowed to say a word about what I'm working on to anyone, even the Old Man. I want it to be a surprise to him and a secret to almost everyone else," Naruto said, making her head shoot up as she looked at him. "I don't use Card Magic or any kind of holder type magic that would directly help you get stronger, but I can give you plenty of experience fighting an opponent that is much stronger than you are. I can also teach you how to use Requip. I'm not good enough with Requip to change clothes or switch between a variety of weapons in battle, but you should be able to manage it if you train hard. If you can pull it off, you could Requip specific cards at will, allowing you to use your spells much faster. Are you still willing to train with me, knowing all of this?"

"I am," Cana said with determination in her eyes.

"Let's begin now then," Naruto said as he popped his knuckles and closed his eyes. "Come at me with all you've got. I will be holding back so I don't destroy the clearing or injure you, but it won't matter."

"And why's that?" Cana asked with a hint of anger. It was well known that Cana hated to be mocked.

"Because of this," Naruto said as he opened his eyes. Though he held his Shockwave Magic back, an aura formed around him, just like every other S-class mage in Fairy Tail was capable of manifesting. His was light blue in color, but the calm, relaxing color was deceptive. The air grew thick and Cana found that she was having difficulty standing. The sheer power that was emanating from him was overwhelming.

"If I was not holding back my Shockwave Magic, I would be standing in a crater right now, and you would be flying through the air," Naruto said calmly. "But just the aura… that is something that any S-class mage can produce. When you can withstand my aura, you'll be one step closer to becoming an S-class mage."

With that, his aura faded and Cana fell to her hands and knees, breathing heavily.

"You won't actually be fighting me today. I just wanted you to think that before I revealed my aura," Naruto admitted. "I'll be teaching you how to Requip today."

Cana just nodded as she rose to her feet. She was still shocked by the vast difference in her power and Naruto's power. Just thinking about how much stronger Gildarts was than Naruto left her feeling even weaker than she had originally thought herself to be.

"Watch me, and I'll explain it," Naruto said as he began to teach her using his rather simple teaching style. He simplified everything so much that anyone could understand what he was trying to teach, which made him a rather effective teacher.

* * *

About an hour after Naruto left the guild hall, Natsu showed up. Lucy had actually shown up about ten minutes before him, and she was still shooting him dirty looks for tricking her into working with him on that last job and making her go home empty-handed in the end.

"Hey, where's Naruto?" Natsu asked as he walked up to Makarov. "I heard he just got back from an S-class job today, and I wanted to hear all about it."

"He's busy training," Makarov answered in an annoyed tone.

"Man, he trains too much," Natsu grumbled.

"And that's why he's so much stronger than you are," Makarov said matter-of-factly.

"He's older though," Natsu said, hating being reminded of how easily Naruto beat him every time.

"That's not a manly excuse," Elfman said with a scowl. "Naruto is a real man. A dragon trained you since you could barely walk, but Naruto started training when he was ten."

"What are you talking about?" Natsu asked, and he was not the only one that was curious. Naruto may have been popular, but he always avoided talking about his pre-Fairy Tail days.

"Forget it," Elfman muttered.

"Can someone tell me about Naruto?" Lucy suddenly asked. "I don't know anything about him other than the fact that he's the fifth strongest mage in the guild."

"I guess I can give you some answers," Mira said, glancing at Makarov, who merely shrugged. "Naruto joined the guild last year on the first day of July. He's never been one to talk about his past, though he did say something to me that might be connected to it today."

"His past is not anyone's concern," Makarov interrupted. "I will not stop you of talking about his time in Fairy Tail, but there are some things that are meant to be left in the past. If he mentioned what I think he did, then it is not something that should be spoken of."

"Yes Master," Mira said, lowering her head. She had not seen Makarov react so quickly to a discussion in a long time, so she suspected that doing what she was told would be for the best. "Back to where I was… Naruto joined a little more than a year ago. We typically get one of four different kinds of mages that join us. The first are people that join young and have not begun to learn magic yet, like Cana was. The second are mages that join young and have been trained but still have a long ways to go, like Natsu and Grey were. The third are mages that join when they are older and are trained but still have a love ways to go, like you. And the fourth are mages that are older and are already very talented. The fourth is the rarest kind of mage that joins, and Naruto just so happens to be one."

"So when he joined, he was already a powerful mage?" Lucy asked in interested.

"Very much so," Macao answered, catching their attention. "Mira did not see any of his fights when he first joined, but I did. When he joined, he was much stronger than Natsu is now."

Naturally, his words annoyed Natsu a great deal.

"He went on to become an S-class mage six months after he joined the guild. In the process of earning his place as an S-class mage, he had to fight Erza, the strongest female mage in Fairy Tail. I'm sure you've heard of Titania Erza. Elfman was there for the fight, but he was knocked unconscious shortly after it began, so only Naruto and Erza know exactly what happened. Neither one will tell anyone though. All we know is that he beat Erza, and he managed to walk away without anymore more than a few scratches," Mira continued, though her mind was still on her conversation with Naruto earlier.

"There's not much more that we know about him after that," Macao said, seeing that Mira was getting distracted. "He's worked with at least half of Fairy Tail on different jobs since he joined, though the only people that he's worked with more than three times are Cana and Elfman. Until yesterday, he never actually did an S-class job with any partners though. He values teamwork and nakama above all else, but he would prefer to work alone than to risk the lives of people who aren't ready for such jobs."

"That is about everything we know," Mira agreed, now focusing on the conversation again. "He also doesn't like it when people talk about him behind his back, so we should stop before we start making speculations."

"That is a good idea," Makarov said, thinking about the magical power that he had sensed coming from East Forest earlier. If Naruto lost his temper, things could get rather dangerous. Jiraiya had worked to make sure that he could control his temper because of how his magic reacted to powerful negative emotions, and Makarov had no intention of seeing exactly why Jiraiya had saw such training as a necessity.

With that, the mages in the guild hall went back to more relaxed conversations. They would not pretend that the conversation had not happened, but they at least tried to put it out of their minds. The unsolvable mysteries of Naruto Uzumaki were enough to give most people headaches, after all.

* * *

Author's Note: After writing fight scenes, it's always different writing a chapter where not much happens. Still, chapters like this are needed.

As you've no doubt noticed, the pairing of this story is now Naruto/Cana. It's a rare pairing and fits my plans, which I like a great deal. Out of Mirajane and Cana, she's the one I really wanted to do, so her winning the poll just reaffirmed my desire to write the pairing.

On a final note, Naruto is going with Makarov to the regular meeting where Lullaby showed up in canon. That doesn't mean that he'll still be there when Kageyama and Team Natsu show up. Naruto's presence there is completely related to my original plotlines. One reason I preferred for Naruto not to end up with Erza or Lucy is that it allows me to have do jobs without involving Team Natsu. They are completely independent of each other with the way I have this.

Anyways, thanks for reading and reviewing. Have a great day.


	5. The Meeting

**5. The Meeting**

_-July 8, X784_

"It must be useful to have old teammates in charge of other guilds," Naruto said as they began to cross Clover Canyon on the train.

"Very much so," Makarov said with a nod. "It also helps that they all left the guild shortly after Orochimaru did, so they are aware of what he attempted to do."

"I forgot that they only left twenty years ago. The Blue Pegasus Guild is just a little older than I am," Naruto commented.

"Yes, it is," Makarov said, looking at Naruto carefully. "Can you tell me why you mentioned the _Incident of the Seventh Tower_ to Mira? It is not something I thought you'd ever want to risk anyone finding out."

"She asked about my past, so I asked her if she had heard of it. If she had, then I could have at least had someone else that understood me without me having to explain," Naruto said with a sigh.

"As far as I know, the Magic Council, a few guild masters, and Jiraiya are the only non-involved parties that are even aware of the incident. Orochimaru and the guild masters of the Balam Alliance may be aware as well, but that's just speculation," Makarov said, glancing out of the window. "I would recommend that you take no more chances unless you decide that you want to actually tell the full story to someone you trust. Not everyone would react well to hearing how much blood you have on your hands."

"I know," Naruto said as he looked down at his hands, remembering when he first unlocked his powers. "I will be more careful for now on."

"Enough of gloomy matters then," Makarov said, changing the subject. "You won't actually attend the regular meeting. Once we meet with Bob and Goldmine, you will be doing another job. Jiraiya will give you the details. All I'll say is that it is an important job."

"I would've brought Cana if I knew that I had to do another job," Naruto commented.

"You won't be doing this job alone," Makarov reassured him. "Speaking of Cana… how's her training going?"

"Not much escapes your attention," Naruto commented. "Her training is going good. She has Requip down already, but she still has a long ways to go. Yesterday, she was able to Requip her entire deck of cards about as fast as she could remove them normally. It's not that helpful yet, but it will be. I suggested that she ask Bisca and Erza for some pointers the next time she saw them. Either one should be able to help her."

"Both are talented with Requip," Makarov agreed. "What truly surprises me about this entire situation is that Cana's alcohol consumption had dropped by more than half since you started training her."

"That's probably for the best," Naruto said with a chuckle. She definitely could do with some cutting back on her drinks. Thirty percent of Fairy Tail's alcohol budget went down her throat, after all. Not that he could really talk. He ate nearly as much ramen as she drank alcohol. Before that subject could continue, he remembered that Makarov had changed the subject. "So who all will be at the pre-meeting meeting?"

"Bob is bringing a mage with him. You will most likely work with him on this job," Makarov said.

"If you tell me that I'm working with Ichiya, I'm going to show you how high I can send someone in the air with a shockwave," Naruto said, not too happy about a prospect like that. Ichiya was the Ace of Blue Pegasus. No one could deny that he was a powerful mage. However, his personality flaws made spending time with him about as appealing as jumping in piranha infested water.

"According to Bob, the mage that he's bringing is someone that we've never met before," Makarov said with a chuckle. "And don't forget that I've blocked your strongest shockwave with just my hand. You wouldn't really be able to throw me that high into the air with a shockwave since I could use my Titan Magic the moment that you tried."

"Don't ruin the moment," Naruto huffed.

"Tell me something, Naruto," Makarov said after a few moments of silence. His voice seemed to grow softer when he spoke this time.

"What is it?" Naruto asked, keeping his eyes on the window.

"Why did you and Sasuke separate? I know that you two traveled together for three years before Jiraiya found you. It just seems strange that you would separate and go with someone that you did not even know," Makarov asked.

"You misunderstand," Naruto said so quietly that it was barely audible. "I considered him my brother in all but blood. When Jiraiya found us, he was the one that walked away, not me. The moment that he heard that his brother was alive, that became his only concern. I did not hear from him again until we were both guild mages and met during a job."

"I apologize for intruding," Makarov said apologetically.

"Don't worry about it. I'm fine."

That was all that was said for the rest of the trip.

* * *

A few hours later, Naruto was sitting in the meeting hall in a medium sized room. The table they were sitting at was circular, allowing six mages to sit with plenty of room but not so much so that they seemed too far apart. Makarov was sitting to his right, with Goldmine as Makarov's right and Bob at Goldmine's right. A Blue Pegasus mage that he had never met before was Bob's right. There was one empty chair still, but that was because Jiraiya was not there yet.

Looking at the mage next to Bob, Naruto estimated that he was two or three years older than him. Instead of wearing a suit like most Blue Pegasus mages dressed, he simply wore black boots, black pants, and a dark blue striped long sleeve shirt with a turtle neck. He had a rather androgynous appearance with long black hair.

"Sorry I'm late."

Naruto's eyes moved to the door as Jiraiya entered with a serious expression. His godfather was the world's biggest pervert and wrote a series that could be best described as erotica, but he also knew when to get serious.

"It's fine. You're just on time," Makarov said, shaking his head.

"Good," Jiraiya said as he took the seat next to Naruto and gave his godson a brief smile. He then turned his attention to the masters of Blue Pegasus and Quatro Ceberus. "You were all in Fairy Tail when Orochimaru was caught trying to use Take Over: Mage Soul on Gildarts, so I don't think I need to explain how dangerous he is."

The young Blue Pegasus mage clenched his fist at that.

"Is something wrong?" Jiraiya asked him.

"This is Haku Yuki. He is an S-class mage of Blue Pegasus. He joined two years ago after Orochimaru used Take Over: Mage Soul on his teacher, Zabuza Momochi," Bob explained.

"I was not aware. I apologize," Jiraiya said, slightly lowering his head. He filed away that information for later though. He had not had much success finding out who Orochimaru's victims were yet. "But back to business… I recently received information that Orochimaru is in the process of creating a guild. There is no proof that it is a dark guild, so we can't do anything with it. But, I did receive information on two of his bases. It turned out to be misleading though. They were bases, but they were empty. They were actually traps, which Naruto and I sprung."

"Oh?" Bob asked, interested. Goldmine looked just as interested in the information as well.

"I encountered four mages that had an ouroboros emblem on their shirts," Jiraiya said, nodding his head in confirmation. "They mentioned _Master Orochimaru_ and how I was one that they were supposed to kill on sight if they could. To be honest, it was almost challenging. The four mages had interesting abilities."

"How so?" Makarov asked.

"Well, the first one was named Sakon. He was around twenty-one years old and had neck length gray hair and looked like he was wearing lipstick and eyeliner. His speed and strength were what you'd expect an average S-class mage to possess, but he shouldn't be underestimated. He possessed a rare kind of magic that I had only heard of before, Body Fusion Magic. It allows him to fuse his body with his enemy's and destroy them at a molecular level. It's quite painful, as I can tell you from experience now. Fortunately, I was able overwhelm him with my aura, stop his technique," Jiraiya explained.

"That's a nasty piece of magic," Goldmine said with a grimace. Bob and Makarov nodded in agreement while Naruto and Haku looked disgusted.

"I'll show you what he looks like to make sure you recognize him if you ever run into him," Jiraiya said, using Transformation Magic to take on the form of the mage in question. He ended the transformation after a minute. "The second one was a girl named Tayuya. She was around twenty-one years old as well. She had brown eyes and red hair that fell to the middle of her back. She also wore this strange looking hat in addition to the uniform that the other mages were wearing. But the most recognizable thing about her is that she is so foul-mouthed that she would make a sailor blush."

"Wow, you described a girl and didn't linger on her assets. That's a big change for you," Naruto said.

The three guild masters snorted at that while Jiraiya pretended to be mortally wounded from his words.

"But seriously, she was the most dangerous one of the four," Jiraiya said, shaking his head. "She used Flute Magic, which made me underestimate her. Then she started playing a song she called _the Puppeteer's Melody_. All of the sudden, the trees came to life and started attacking me. Every time I destroyed one, another one came to life. As if that was not bad enough, she used an illusion based spell with her flute when I decided to go directly after her. I ended up having to use my Earth Magic to create an earthquake in order to stop her. It was a good thing too. She was about to play a song that she called _the Melody of Death_."

At this point, he transformed into the mage in question. Naruto truly found it hard to believe that he did not comment on her appearance. She was definitely not lacking in the beauty department, after all.

Once he changed back, he said, "The third one was a guy named Kidomaru. He has dark skin and black hair. I'd say that he was the same age as the other two mages. To be honest, I paid little attention to him. He was the weakest one of the four. He only used Web Magic, and I was easily able to counter his attacks and knock him out."

He changed into the mage in question at that point and changed back to normal a few moments later.

"And the fourth one was named Jirobo. He was the same age as the other mages, had orange hair in a mohawk-type style, had orange eyes, and was rather large in size, vertically and horizontally. I didn't think much of him at first since he was only using Earth Magic. But then he managed to grab a hold of me and started to suck out my magical power. I was able to throw him off, but he was able to use what he absorbed from me, so he was at full strength again. Still, he was simple enough to beat," Jiraiya said. Once again, he transformed into the mage in question for a few moments before changing back.

"All in all, the mages I dealt with were all S-class in terms of ability or sheer power. Even Kidomaru had the magical power that you would expect from an S-class mage. They were not skilled enough to beat me though, and they fought one at a time instead of working together. Still, they could prove to be a challenge against most S-class mages," Jiraiya continued. "Now, I'd like Naruto to talk about the ones he fought."

"I only fought one while Elfman Strauss and Cana Alberona fought the other, but they filled me in completely," Naruto said, remembering everything that he had been told. "There were two guys. One had pale skin, shoulder length white hair, and red dots on his forehead. The other had spiky orange hair and red eyes. I fought the first while they fought the second. I actually did some research on their types of magic since they're pretty uncommon. The first one, Kimimaro, used Dead Bone Pulse."

Jiraiya, Bob, and Goldmine all looked alarmed at that. Makarov had been aware of it, naturally.

"Yeah, he was a pain in the ass to beat. He made his bones too hard and thick for my shockwaves to move inside his body and disable him. He also broke my knuckles when I punched him," Naruto said, shaking his head. "Apparently, Dead Bone Pulse really does allow him complete control over his bones property and their growth, and it also has an added healing ability so that any wound formed on the user by his bones heals almost instantly. I ended up knocking him out with my Shattering Shock Blast."

At that point, Naruto used Transformation to take on the appearance of Kimimaro.

"The second one was named Jugo," Naruto said as he shifted his appearance to the other mage. "He used Demon Transformation Magic and went berserk when he was transformed. Apparently, he could grow axe blades out of his arms too." He canceled the transformation at that point.

"So, he was of that bloodline," Jiraiya said with a sigh. "Demon Transformation Magic comes from a group of people that were said to be part human and part demon. Unfortunately, the thinner their demon side gets, the more volatile they get. They can naturally use Demon Transformation Magic and have an aptitude for it, but those with a small part of demon blood flowing through them lose control of their mind when they transform. Only humans with demon blood flowing through their veins have complete control over the forms though. Pure humans cannot create blades out of their bodies, even with the magic activated."

"He could also create this kind of protrusion from his legs that let him jump far away with a boost of magical power," Naruto remarked.

"That's another thing that only people of his bloodline can do," Jiraiya said with a nod. "That form of Demon Transformation Magic is actually called Origin Demon Transformation Magic, referencing the fact that it is the original form. The fact that very few possessors of it can control it doesn't matter, apparently."

"So he's got users of Body Fusion Magic, Flute Magic, Web Magic, Magic Absorption, Dead Bone Pulse, and Origin Demon Transformation Magic working for him," Goldmine said with a frown. "This really isn't good."

"No, it is not," Makarov said while Bob nodded in agreement. "These are just six individuals too. There is no telling who else he has, or who he has his eye on for recruitment purposes."

"Well, we know one person that he has his eye on, but it is for the sole purpose of using Mage Soul on," Jiraiya said grimly.

"Who?" Naruto asked. Apparently, everyone else were as confused as he was.

"There are two people, really," Jiraiya amended. "What he wants more than anything right now is the Copy Wheel Eyes."

Naruto's eyes narrowed at that.

"What is that?" Haku asked in confusion.

"Copy Wheel Eyes are considered to be a Lost Magic, and they are one of the only eye-based forms of magic to hold such a position," Makarov explained. "Copy Wheel Eyes take on the form of a red iris with a maximum of three tomoe within the iris orbiting the pupil. It has three different levels, or stages as they are called. In the First Stage, Copy Wheel Eyes can see magic and have the ability to instantly understand the nature of the spell that is being used. In the Second Stage, Copy Wheel Eyes gain the ability to copy any spell that they witness. This doesn't give them the ability to actually copy and use any spell, however. The user cannot use a spell that they copy if they cannot use the type of magic that the spell belongs to, which makes copying spells belonging to Dragon Slayer Magic useless. It is also impossible to copy spells like Fairy Tail's Three Great Magics, despite the fact that they are not actually part of a particular form of magic. Certain qualities must be met for one to use such forms of magic, after all."

"What of the Third Stage?" Haku asked.

"In the Third Stage, the user gains the ability to copy physical movements, allowing them to copy hand-to-hand fighting styles," Naruto answered. "There is only one user of Copy Wheel Eyes in the Third Stage, and that is Itachi Uchiha, Commander of the First Division of the Rune Knights. The only other known user of Copy Wheel Eyes is his younger brother, Sasuke Uchiha. His are in the Second Stage, though. We fight every time we meet, so I can tell you for certain that his were in the Second Stage last week."

"That's correct, on all counts," Jiraiya agreed. "And it's easy to understand why Orochimaru wants the Copy Wheel Eyes. He is limited to using Mage Soul once every three years. But if he had Copy Wheel Eyes, then the only mages he would need to use Mage Soul on would be those with unique or Lost Magic. I know for certain that he has used Mage Soul on at least one person that only used elemental magic. If he had possessed Copy Wheel Eyes, he could have simply fought his opponent and pushed them to their limits, forcing them to reveal all of their spells."

"He cannot have that magic then," Haku said with fire in his eyes. Naruto found himself nodding in agreement with the slightly older mage. Even if he had not once been best friends with Sasuke and still cared for his wellbeing, along with his brother's wellbeing, he still would not want Orochimaru to get his hands on such an ability.

"Fighting Itachi would prove to be detrimental to his health," Makarov stated. "Itachi Uchiha is not one of the Ten Wizard Saints, but that is only because there is not currently an empty seat. Despite his young age, he is one of the strongest mages I have ever met. I believe that Gildarts could beat him if they fought, but it would not be an easy victory by any means."

"Then he will target Sasuke next year," Naruto said with a frown. That did not sit well with him at all.

"Itachi actually likes Fairy Tail, so he'll listen to me if I tell him about the Orochimaru incident. He will know how to protect his brother. He already feels like he failed once before," Jiraiya said.

"Sasuke feels like he failed once before too," Naruto said, pinching the bridge of his nose. He never understood why Sasuke was so determined to blame the hand he was dealt in live on Itachi. No one could possibly do everything. Seeing as how Itachi was his only living family, it would have made more sense to Naruto if he had tried to become close to his brother instead of distancing himself from him.

"I think that's enough on this subject for now," Makarov said, clapping his hands. "We'll tell you if we find out anything more."

"Same here," Bob and Goldmine said.

"Now then, we should get on to the next topic of business," Jiraiya said, looking between Naruto and Haku. "I am told that you two are some of the strongest members of your guilds."

"Haku is just below our Ace in terms of power and skill," Bob commented.

"And Naruto is around the same level as Mystogan," Makarov added.

"That's good to hear. Before I say anything else, I want you to keep in mind that while Orochimaru is one of the biggest threats out there, there are plenty of others... like the Balam Alliance" Jiraiya said. "Now that you have that in mind... this is going to be a difficult job. Simply put, two members of Oracion Seis are making their way to one of their subordinate guilds, Ghoul Spirit, tonight to collect their monthly dues. I want you two to confront them and see what you can learn about their guild. Even knowing what their abilities are should help."

Naruto looked at Jiraiya flatly at that. That sounded like the type of plan that he wanted no part in. Too many things could go wrong. But he decided to keep listening.

"I know for certain that the Master of Oracion Seis won't personally come. The same goes for the strongest mage below him in the guild. Both of them will be busy doing something else in another part of Fiore. So in short, two of the other four members will be there. I will attract the attention of the other two members and try to see what I can find out as well," Jiraiya continued. "We will not be capturing them though. If we just beat them up, they may get a little angry at Fairy Tail and Blue Pegasus. But if we actually capture their members, we will have to deal with a full retaliation. We do not know the exact relationship between the guilds of the Balam Alliance either, so for all we know, we could bring the full wrath of Grimoire Heart and Tartaros down on us if we capture them. Until we can take down all six members of Oracion Seis at once, we cannot risk acting too rashly."

"I guess I'm in," Naruto said with a sigh. It sounded a little better than what he first though, though he was still not looking forward to it too much.

"I am as well," Haku said in a determined voice.

"Let's get on the move then," Jiraiya said as he rose to his feet. "Ghoul Spirit is near Shirotsume Town, so we have a ways to go."

"Whatever you say, Pervy Mage," Naruto muttered.

"What did you just call me?" Jiraiya asked, staring at Naruto with a 'you didn't just say that' kind of look.

"Hmm… did you say something?" Naruto asked innocently as he walked out of the room.

"I don't get any respect," Jiraiya muttered as he followed Naruto.

The moment that Naruto, Jiraiya, and Haku were out of the room, the guild masters busted up laughing.

"It's hard to believe little Naruto has grown up so much," Bob said, wiping his eyes.

"I know what you mean," Goldmine said, nodding his head. "It feels like just yesterday that we heard of him when he was one of the two boys from the Seventh Tower. I worried about what kind of effect the incident would have on his mind."

"Naruto is the strongest person I know," Makarov said with a solemn nod. "Do not underestimate the effect that the first ten years of his life had on him. They made him strong, but they also made him experience things that few others could handle. It is part of why he feels nothing but disdain for the Magic Council. There are very few members that he can tolerate."

"He hates them because they failed to do anything until after the incident?" Goldmine asked.

"Yes," Makarov answered. "But can you blame him? He spent five years in that place and ended up taking dozens of lives before they even arrived. In the mind of a child that is just a few months away from being ten years old, the way that such an event is perceived would forever impact a person."

Neither guild master had anything to say on the matter.

_The Incident of the Seven Tower_… it was always a difficult subject to think about, even for a group that already thought low of the Council in general.

* * *

Author's Note: That chapter took longer than I expected to write, but I think it came out fairly well, given the fact that it is primarily an informative chapter. I actually did not even intend to keep referencing Naruto's past in this chapter, but it ended up coming out like it did. I wonder if anyone can figure out Naruto's past after reading this chapter.

As you no doubt noticed, Naruto Uzumaki, Jiraiya, Sasuke Uchiha, Itachi Uchiha, Haku, Orochimaru, Jugo, Kimimaro, Sakon, Tayuya, Kidomaru, and Jirobo are 12 of the 20 Naruto characters that will show up. I have actually decided on 19 of the 20. Seven of them will be in a guild known as Kirin (it's a legal guild), and one of them will be one of Orochimaru's subordinates.

The final Naruto character is undecided right now, but it could be pretty much anyone. I do not believe that it will be Gaara though. In fusion stories, I have a a hard time writing Gaara for some reason. I've tried it before, but it never works out. I will say that I'm considering using Kisame, Suigetsu, Guren, Anko, Fu, or Nagato, but those are just possible options. I don't need to make the decision right now, after all.

I do want to address Jiraiya's attire for a moment. Changing the Naruto characters' attire into something else can be annoying to write out when you have a few to do, so I only removed the oil kanji from his forehead protector and left everything else the same. I don't think it is too ninja-ish for Fairy Tail.

Anyways, next chapter, you'll get to see Naruto and Haku fight against two members of Oracion Seis. I'll admit that this arc is partially done just so Naruto isn't around for the Lullaby Arc and so that I can have Naruto fight someone in Oracion Seis since he won't be involved in the Oracion Seis Arc. They are worthy enemies though, so I don't have a problem using them for this.

Well, thanks for reading and reviewing this story. It's been a blast to write so far. Have a good day/night.


	6. No Match

**6. No Match**

_-July 8, X784_

Suddenly, the front doors of the Fairy Tail guild hall swung open and Loke entered the guild building in a run, despite having just fled a minute earlier upon being reminded that Lucy was a Celestial Spirit Mage. Apparently, he had a short memory when attractive girls were involved.

Breathing heavily, he said, "Erza is back!"

The doors swung open again just after Loke took a seat and Erza Scarlet walked into the guild hall with a massive horn held above her head by her right hand.

"I'm back," she said in the serious way only she could manage without anyone even thinking of being sarcastic. "Is Master present at the moment?"

"Welcome back," Mirajane said cheerfully. "Master is attending the regular meeting."

"I see…" Erza said with a frown as she set the horn down.

"Erza, what is that humungous thing?" one of the mages suddenly asked.

"Oh, you mean this?" Erza asked as she gestured to the horn. "The local townspeople decorated the horn of the demon that I subdued. It was so pretty that I brought it back as a souvenir."

"Will it be a nuisance?" Erza asked, looking at the mage with a curious expression. He immediately shook his head in response. Her attention turned to the various mages in the room after she saw his response. "Anyways, I heard you've been causing trouble again. Even if Master forgives you, I won't."

"Who is she?" Lucy asked quietly, though she did not immediately get a response.

"Cana, that's an inappropriate drinking posture," Erza said, looking at the guild's heaviest drinker, who was drinking a barrel of alcohol. "Vijeeter, if you want to dance, go outside. Wakaba, your cigarette butts are all over the floor. Nab, are you still hanging around the request board? Pick a job already. You guys give me so much trouble, but I won't say anything for today."

One by one, each mage that she mentioned froze. Very few people could react calmly after Erza got onto them.

"By the way, are Natsu and Gray here?" she suddenly asked.

"Hey Erza. We're being good to each other as always," Gray said nervously with an arm around Natsu's neck.

"Aye," Natsu said, just as nervously.

"Now he's talking like Happy," Lucy muttered, still confused as ever.

"I see… best friends do fight once in a while, but I do rather seeing you two being good to each other like that all the time," Erza said. "I'm happy to see that both of you are doing great."

"I actually have a favor to ask both of you. I heard something troubling at work. Usually I would consult Master about this, but it is too urgent to wait. I need your help. You'll come with me, right?" Erza asked.

Immediately, everyone was struck speechless by Erza's request, but the two boys nodded.

She then looked at Mirajane.

"Is Naruto around? I wouldn't mind getting him to come with me if he's not busy," Erza asked.

"He's attending the meeting with the Master, actually," Mirajane said, shaking her head.

"Why would he be attending the meeting?" Lucy asked herself aloud. She was not as quiet as she thought though.

"Ever since he joined, Naruto has expressed interested in becoming the Fourth Master of Fairy Tail," Cana answered Lucy, though she kept her voice quiet so she did not attract Erza's attention. "It's not out of the question that he would want to go to experience one of the regional guild masters' meetings."

Truthfully, Cana was well aware that Naruto went to talk to Bob and Goldmine with Makarov and Jiraiya about the Orochimaru situation. Naruto had explained that much to her the previous day so as to explain why he wouldn't be able to train her for a little while.

"Oh well, we can handle it without him," Erza said, looking between Gray and Natsu. "I'll tell you the details on the way. We'll leave tomorrow, so be prepared." she then picked the horn back up and began to make her way out of the guild hall.

"Those three together… it might very well be the strongest team in Fairy Tail," Mirajane said quietly.

Cana mentally disagreed with her as she finished off her drink before rising to her feet and heading after Erza. Compared to Laxus and the Thunder God Tribe, that team was not the strongest. Truthfully, Cana also suspected that the team Naruto had formed for their last job was at least as strong the newly formed team, if not stronger.

Breaking away from such thoughts, she called Erza's name out, catching her attention.

"Do you need something?" Erza asked curiously. It was not a normal situation for Cana to try to get Erza's attention, after all.

"I've started training with Naruto, and he suggested that I use Requip with my cards. I was hoping you could give me some pointers," Cana said. She was not sure if she wanted Erza to accept or refuse her request.

Erza smiled suddenly. "Naruto is a very smart person when it comes to fighting. Leave it to him to suggest something that no one else has since you joined the guild twelve years ago. I'd be happy to give you some pointers. Once I put this horn away, I'll be able to see what I can do to help you. We will be going tomorrow morning on this job, so I'm afraid I don't have too much time to help you though."

"That's fine," Cana said with a smile. Erza was far easier to deal with when it was about a subject that she liked, apparently. "Naruto started me off two days ago, so any help would be appreciated."

"What made you seek him out for help?" Erza asked curiously.

"Well, I did an S-class job with him and Elfman the day before. Once we got back to the guild, I decided to ask him for help. It's hard to feel strong after you fight an opponent that would likely stomp you if you were alone," Cana explained.

"No one starts out strong," Erza said, looking the other girl in the eyes. "Some of us may seem like we've always been strong, but we weren't born this way. We were forced to become strong for various reasons. For some, it has been to protect our nakama. For others, it has been to survive. There are limitless motivations that can force someone to become strong. Just as everyone has their own motivations, everyone improves at a different rate, so don't feel down just because you haven't become strong as fast someone else. You have great potential. You always have."

"Thank you," Cana said, looking away. She had never seen Erza act quite like that before.

"So, what happened on the job?" Erza suddenly asked.

"I'm not sure if I can tell you all the details," Cana said with a frown. "Naruto said that the full details should be kept quiet."

"He would allow you to tell me," Erza said with a piercing stare. "I am a fellow S-class mage, and I know that Naruto would only say that the details should be kept quiet if it involved a Fairy Tail secret. So you can either tell me now, or I will find out about it when I see Naruto or the Master again."

Needless to say, Cana told Erza everything. She was rather persuasive, after all.

* * *

"So how will we do this?" Haku asked quietly as they waited in the forest along the road to Shirotsume. They were in the perfect position to ambush the Oracion Seis members when they walked past towards Ghoul Spirit.

"We need to fight one-on-one to figure out what their abilities are. I'm not sure who gets to fight who. We'll probably need to start it off as a two-on-two fight to determine the basics of what they can do," Naruto said. "It wouldn't be good if we had to fight the ones that are best able to handle us, after all."

Haku nodded in understanding but did not say anything.

A few minutes later, they heard a voice.

"You might as well come out. I can hear you."

Naruto mentally cursed but jumped to the road with Haku following him.

There were two individuals present. One was a man with spiky crimson hair and had a snake wrapped around him. The second was a woman with short white hair that was style to make it look like she had a halo above her head and wore a white feather dress that exposed quite a bit of cleavage. The dress also had wings on the back, making it even clearer that she was trying to look like an angel.

"Two?" the first muttered in alarm. "I only heard one."

"So one of them is immune to your magic?" the second one asked in amusement.

Naruto lifted a hand towards both of them and sent a wide, sweeping shockwave towards them, hoping to throw them back. His eyes narrowed when the first started moving out of the way even before his hand was completely facing them. The second one was blown back, however.

"Naruto, he appears to have a type of magic similar to Sound Magic but is focused on hearing. I will fight him. I have a type of magic that will render it useless," Haku said.

"Sure thing," Naruto said, popping his knuckles. He quickly used Rush to speed towards the second Oracion Seis mage.

"Interesting," the first mage said as he stared at Haku. "When you spoke, I could hear your very soul. It's quiet when your mouth is closed though. I know about Muted Body now. As long as you keep your mouth shut, I won't be able to hear you. That's fine with me though. I like a challenge. What's your name?"

"I am Haku Yuki of Blue Pegasus," Haku said, focusing intently on those words so that his opponent did not hear anything else.

"Well Haku, I'm Cobra, and I'm going to be the one that killed you," the Oracion Seis mage said as he sprung into action.

* * *

"So, I guess I'm fighting you," Naruto said as he stood face to face with his opponent. They were several hundred yards away from Haku and Cobra, so they would be able to fight anyone interfering.

"You wouldn't harm an angel, would you?" she asked with a laugh. "That's who I am… Angel of Oracion Seis."

"I am Naruto Uzumaki of Fairy Tail," Naruto said as he unleashed his magic, completely shattering the ground where he was standing. "And I know better than to take it easy on girls, especially ones that pretend to be as nice as angels when they are really as evil as Zeref's demons."

His opponent looked furious at his words. He was not sure where it came from, but he suddenly noticed a gold key in her hand.

_So, she has at least one of them. I'll need to mention this to Lucy._

"Gate of the Scorpion, open!" she called out as she pointed the key forward.

Suddenly, a tall dark-skinned man with a large scorpion tail appeared between Naruto and Angel.

"We are Scorpio, yeah!" the spirit said, looking to Naruto. He seemed far more carefree than Naruto would have expected.

"Scorpio, destroy him," Angel said coldly.

Scorpio did not verbally reply. Instead, his tailed moved in a thrusting motion towards Naruto.

Naruto grinned when he saw that a spear of sand had just shot from the tail towards him. His magic engulfed his hands before concentrating beneath the palms of his hands, mid-air.

"Exploding Shock Wave," Naruto said as he threw the disk-like shockwaves towards the spirit. He then sidestepped the sand spear, and used a shockwave to throw it into the forest.

"Sand Buster," Scorpio said, sending the power behind Naruto's attack. He released a whirlwind of sand towards Naruto's attack.

It was all for naught though.

Naruto's disk-like shockwaves collided, causing an explosion that turned into a powerful shockwave. That shockwave easily overpowered Scorpio's Sand Buster and sent both master and spirit flying.

Scorpio hit a tree hard before disappearing, while Angel was merely sent rolling down the road.

"You are strong," Angel admitted as she touched her now bloody lip. Naruto's eyes narrowed when he saw that she had a gold key in each hand at this point. "Gate of the Ram, open! Gate of the Twins, open!"

"Two spirits at the same time," Naruto said with a frown as he looked at the spirits. The first wore a white wool outfit and had pink hair with horns in the top of her head. The second looked to be a pair of small humanoid type creatures.

"Against Aries and Gemini, you don't stand a chance," Angel said with a laugh.

"Unfortunately, you can't test that theory," Naruto said as he unveiled his full magical aura, making Angel realize that Gemini would be unable to copy him. The vast difference in their magical powers was too great. She knew that she would need another plan. But Naruto's next word prevented her from coming up with a plan. "Tremor."

Suddenly, Aries and Gemini collapsed, feeling too ill to even stand up.

"Rise," Naruto said a moment later. The spirits were suddenly sent flying up as a shockwave was sent through the ground and surfaced just below them.

"Do you have any more gold keys?" Naruto asked as he lifted his right hand towards her. A concentrated sphere of Shockwave Magic had already begun to form.

In response, Angel pulled out a silver key, but Naruto's attack hit her before she could summon anything.

"Shock Blast," Naruto said as the powerful shockwave hit her, sending her flying back several hundred yards and tearing up the road in the way that only a Fairy Tail mage could.

"The power of a Celestial Spirit is dependent upon the power of the Celestial Spirit Mage that holds the keys," Naruto said as he turned away from the battle. He knew that she would not be getting back up. "It is rare to find one that has the kind of magical power that Erza has, but the spirits of Celestial Spirit Mages like that are all at the same level as guys like Natsu and Gray. That's what the OId Pervert says, anyways."

Sighing, he looked to see how Haku was doing.

* * *

Haku had been the student of Zabuza Momochi, and it would have been foolish to dismiss him. Zabuza had been a former member of Death Head Caucus, a guild that had specialized in assassination jobs. He had left because he wanted to go solo since he felt that he was not being paid enough. It was easy to understand why he felt that way too.

Zabuza had been in possession of a few powerful forms of magic. Muted Body canceled out all noises that the user's body made with a type of sound barrier, and Hidden in the Mist was a powerful Water Magic spell that allowed the user to obscure an entire area with thick mist. Combined with his high sensory abilities and the giant sword he used, he had easily been a feared assassin.

He had taught Haku Muted Body and Hidden in the Mist, but the majority of Haku's skills lied elsewhere.

Cobra learned that when he neared Haku and saw his snake attempt to bite the Blue Pegasus mage.

Haku brought his left fist against his open right hand in a sign that was commonly used by Gray Fullbuster of Fairy Tail.

_Ice-Make: Diamond Cage._

The air around Cuberos began to freeze instantly, trapping almost all of her body into an unbreakable block of ice. Only when Haku or Cuberos had left the area would the spell end.

"You bastard!" Cobra yelled. Clearly, he was rather attached to the snake… or what he believed was a snake.

Suddenly, Cobra's arms began to change with scales appearing on them.

Haku immediately started wishing that he had ended the fight in a hurry. It would have been child's play to use Hidden in the Mist to conceal himself and take out Cobra before he could even see him. It was a hard spell to counter unless the victim had seen it before, after all.

"Poison Dragon's Roar," Cobra bellowed before releasing a blast of poison towards him.

_White Fang._ Suddenly, two spear-like blasts of snow appeared and Haku sent them towards the attack, twisting around each other to become more concentrated.

Poison Dragon's Roar and White Fang met, only to nullify both attacks. They appeared to be of equal strength.

_I cannot continue to fight him, it seems. The important part is that we know that he is a Dragon Slayer of some sort. I've never seen one with scales though._

Breaking away from that line of though, Haku waved a hand out towards Cobra.

_Water Lock._

Suddenly, Cobra was incased in a large sphere of water. He might have been able to break free, but Haku thrust a palm towards it before he could react.

"Frost Wave," he said, sending a wave of Ice Magic towards the sphere, freezing it. The dark mage would be fine when the spell ended, but he would be unable to do anything until then.

"You ready?" Naruto asked as he neared Haku.

"Yes, I am," Haku said with a nod.

"Let's go and meet up with him then. We'll probably head back to our guilds afterwards," Naruto said. "I don't really feel like spending a few days with a bunch of old geezers, so I'll probably head back regardless. Either way, it's been nice working with you."

"Same to you," Haku said with a nod.

At that point, the pair began to make their way to the rendezvous point.

* * *

**Guild Card Corner**

Name: Haku Yuki

Age: 21

Magic: 

~Water Magic- a basic form of Elemental Magic. It focuses on the creation and manipulation of water.

~Snow Magic- a water-based form of Elemental Magic. It allows the user to create, control, and attack with snow.

~Ice Magic- a water-based form of Elemental Magic. It allows the user to create and attack with ice. Unlike Ice-Make, it can be done with a single hand without lacking stability, but it is raw in nature and lacks the finesse of Ice-Make.

~Ice-Make- a form of Molding Magic that lets the user create static and dynamic objects out of ice.

~Muted Body- a Sound-Barrier Hybrid-type Magic that surrounds the user with a thin invisible barrier that blocks out all sound from exiting it. Its only weakness is the mouth. The barrier completely surrounds the user, but it only covers the user's mouth when it is shut. This is done due to the fact that the barrier would prevent the user from speaking and being heard without canceling the spell, otherwise. Most people cannot exploit that weakness since it is too small. Those with far greater hearing than normal can hear other things when the user opens their mouth, however, allowing them to exploit it.

Likes: Blue Pegasus

Hates: Orochimaru

* * *

Author's Note: And that's a wrap for this chapter.

The first scene was added kind of to show where Team Natsu is in the canon story while not directly involving Naruto in anything they're doing.

I hope everyone enjoyed the fight scenes. They were actually pretty fun to write, though they weren't as long as I though they'd be. Admittedly, the only members of Oracion Seis that would have been a challenge for Naruto are Brain/Zero and Midnight, which made the chapter less interesting than it could have been. That's the price to pay when I make Naruto just a step below Laxus and Mystogan in terms of power though.

That's actually the end of my second arc. There was the Introduction Arc (Chapters 1-3) and the Meeting Arc (Chapter 4-6). They weren't the best arcs, but they served the purpose I wanted, to cover the time between the start of canon and the Lullaby Arc. The next real arc will be the Phantom Lord Arc, though it won't actually start until Chapter 8 since Chapter 7 will be a downtime type chapter. Naruto won't be involved in the Galuna Island arc. He'll have his time focused on other matters.

Anyways, thanks for reading and reviewing. There will be some more Naruto/Cana interactions next chapter, by the way.


	7. Unexpected Development

**7. Unexpected Development**

_July 9, X784_

After meeting up with Jiraiya, Naruto and Haku ended up returning to their respective guilds. It was well into the night when he reached Magnolia, so he ended up going to his apartment instead of dropping by the guild.

Now that it was morning, he was ready to visit Cana and see if she wanted to train some more.

When he entered the guild, he immediately noted that most of the people were surprised to see him.

"Weren't you at the meeting?" Mira asked with a frown. Him suddenly showing up early was something that puzzled her, and she did not like to be puzzled like that.

"Eh, I got bored, so I left," Naruto said with a shrug. He then looked at Cana, who seemed to be drinking the rest of her barrel of alcohol faster than he had ever seen her do so before. Apparently, she was expecting him to want to start training her. "Hey Cana, slow down. Just meet me at the normal spot whenever you're ready. There's no sense in rushing yourself."

Cana nodded and slowed down. A faint smile could be seen on her face.

"You missed all the excitement," Mira suddenly said, looking at Naruto. "Erza, Natsu, and Gray formed a team. Well, Lucy and Happy went with them, but it's still so exciting to have those three powerful mages on a single team."

Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose at that. "Cana, I think you might want to cut down on the alcohol or start getting some from somewhere else. If those three are working together, the Old Man is going to have to use more money on repairs and property damage, which will mean less money on other things, like alcohol."

Cana groaned at that while everyone else began to pale. Apparently, they had not thought of the damage that a combined team like that could do.

"Have you ever considered the fact that no two S-class mages do jobs together outside of the extremely dangerous S-class jobs?" Naruto asked curiously. "If two S-class mages, like me and Laxus, did a normal job together, then we would most likely get more than a little slap on the wrist by the Magic Council."

"The only thing that could be worse is if you and Gildarts worked together," Macao commented.

"I'd probably be bored," Naruto said as he turned to leave. "I've never met the man, but any job where a mage like him would need help is the type of job where I would be useless weight. There is a big difference in my power and the power of a mage that is compared to the Old Man. Anyways, I'm going out to train, so I'll see you guys later."

With that, Naruto left the guild hall to get some training in.

* * *

Hours later, Naruto and Cana were training in the forest. Unlike most of their training sessions, it was a practical one.

"Explosion Cards," Cana whispered as four cards appeared in her right hand with a picture of an explosion on them. She threw them towards Naruto, and they seemed to space out perfectly in a square as though they could control themselves.

As they neared Naruto, they exploded, though he was easily able to use a low powered shockwave to repel the explosion.

That was how this training session had gone. Cana would repeatedly use her spells against him, and he would casually dismiss her attacks with his magic.

Still, Naruto had to admit that he was impressed so far. She had really gotten the hang of Requip already, though it still took several seconds of preparation for her to Requip several identical cards. It took closer to thirty seconds for her to Requip several different cards, which made it difficult for her to perform her stronger spells in a practical manner.

"That's enough for today," Naruto said with a smile. "You're getting pretty good. All you need is some more practice."

"I'll make sure to practice all I can," Cana said with a nod. "What do you think we should do after I get Requip down though?"

"I cannot help you with your Card Magic after you have Requip down. Well, I can help you practice using new combinations, but I can't help you make your Card Magic stronger," Naruto said. He then grew thoughtful. "But, there is another option. Have you thought about learning something else?"

"What do you mean?" Cana asked with a frown.

"Many mages use multiple forms of magic. Have you considered going through the Archives at the guild hall to see if there was a type of magic you'd be interested in learning? I couldn't teach you how to use anything but one of the eight types of magic I can use. Of course, I wouldn't be willing to teach anyone Shockwave Magic or Regeneration Magic. They both have risks and dangers that few people know about," Naruto said.

"Eight types of magic?" Cana asked, catching something that she had not expected.

"I finished it," Naruto said, nodding his head. "I've actually been working on it for about six months, but focusing on it so intently lately helped me complete it. I'd be willing to teach it to you if you want, but you can't teach it to anyone else."

"I'd love to start learning it," Cana said with a smile. "Thank you for all your help. You have no idea what it means to me. If I can do anything to repay you, just say the word."

"Actually, there is something you could do to repay me," Naruto said thoughtfully.

"Oh?" Cana asked curiously. If it was just any other guy, she would have been suspicious, but she trusted Naruto.

"I think I'm going to be pretty hungry tonight. I'll probably have to spend a while at a restaurant, in fact," Naruto commented. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to keep me company, would you?"

Cana's eyes widened at that. She was quite surprised by his question.

"Are you asking me out on a date?" she asked. That was the last thing that she had ever expected. As far as she knew, Naruto had never showed any interest in any of the girls in the guild. Well, he showed some interest in some of Mirajane's photos in Sorcerer Weekly, but he had never hinted that he had anything by a physical attraction to any girl as long as she had known him.

"Yeah, but it didn't come out very well," Naruto said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "I'll understand if you don't want to go out with me, but I do like you. I really only started to like you as more than a friend in the past week, but I'd like to see if it's just a crush or something more."

"As long as it's just a date," Cana said with a smile, nodding her head. She had no complaints. He was an attractive guy, and she did like him as well, though not enough for her to make the first move. "It can be a one-time thing unless we decide otherwise after it's over. But don't be expecting anything out of me after the date."

"If I really wanted _that_, don't you think I'd approach one of the many girls that idolize Fairy Tail's S-class mages?" Naruto asked in amusement. "The last person I'd go to is a fellow Fairy Tail mage. If things ended badly, I could just imagine the type of things that might get around."

Cana could not help but laugh with him at that.

"Pick me up as six," Cana said as she started to leave.

"You're leaving already?" Naruto asked in surprise.

"You don't expect me to exhaust myself before I go on a date, do you?" Cana asked innocently.

"I'll pick you up at six then," Naruto said, shaking his head. He knew better than to argue with a woman.

* * *

That night, Naruto stood outside of Cana's door in the nicest clothes he had ever worn. He had bought black dress shoes, black slacks, and an orange button up dress shirt just for the occasion. When he was younger, he had no reason to even dress presentable, which was why he never wore anything impressive.

He stood motionless outside of her room, unsure if he should knock or wait a little longer. He had shown up early to make sure he was on time, but he did not want to rush her or anything. From what he heard, girls hated to be rushed and for a date to show up late.

Still, he knew that she was in her dorm at Fairy Hills due to his ability to sense magical power.

"How long are you going to wait out there?"

Naruto was surprised to hear the question as Cana opened the door. She was wearing the most clothes that he had ever seen her in, a long dark blue spaghetti strap dress and a matching pair of shoes. He was clad that she did not wear heels though, due to the fact that they were already just as tall as each other without them. Naruto noted that it was also the first time that he had ever seen her with her hair tied up in a pony tail.

"I was waiting for the right moment," Naruto said with a grin.

"Of course you were," Cana said with a chuckle. "So, where exactly are you taking me?"

"It's just a small restaurant that was recommended to me," Naruto said as he took her hand and began to lead her away. "You didn't think I would take you out for ramen, did you?"

From the look Cana gave him, he got the instinct impression that it would not have surprised her.

* * *

After leaving Fairy Hills, Naruto and Cana walked to a small restaurant in downtown Magnolia.

The restaurant's name was called Shane's. It was not exactly the nicest restaurant in town, but it was definitely a nice place for a date.

They were immediately guided by the sole waiter in the building to a candle lit table in the middle of the room. Only a few of the other tables were occupied, but that was to be expected given that they were there on a Monday night.

As they took a seat, Naruto picked up the menu and looked through it. It was definitely not the nicest restaurant in town, but it was still somewhere that the majority of the middle class of Magnolia could not afford to eat at regularly. It was actually recommended to him by Loke a while back. For some reason, the Ring Magic user insisted on trying to turn him into a womanizer.

Cana ended up ordering a large steak and a tall glass of beer. Given that Naruto normally ate store bought ramen, ramen from Fairy Tail, or something simple like hamburgers, his tastes were not exactly refined. As such, he ended up ordering a steak and some tea.

Once the waiter walked away, Cana said, "So Naruto, I don't suppose I could get you to tell me something about yourself, could I? You aren't reclusive like Mystogan is, but no one really knows much about you."

"There are reasons that I don't talk about my past," Naruto said with a frown. "I'll tell you one day, but it just isn't a good topic to talk about. All I'll say is that the village I grew up in was destroyed when I was around four or five years old. I didn't really have anyone to look after me until I met my godfather when I was thirteen. He trained me after that, and I joined Fairy Tail when I was eighteen. You'll understand everything before too long."

"Fair enough," Cana said. Given her own past, she could understand wanting to keep some secrets.

As they waited for dinner, they continued to talk, though the subject changed to lighter things. Most of the conversation was about their lives since joining Fairy Tail, and Naruto actually ended up telling her about the recent job that he went on for Jiraiya. They also discussed a few rumors, like if Natsu and Lucy were more than friends, if Happy would ever meet a talking girl cat, etc.

* * *

After they finished their meal and had desert, Naruto and Cana walked out of the restaurant and towards Fairy Hills, holding hands. Unlike when Naruto had picked her up, Cana had initiated the action.

As Fairy Hills came within sight, Cana looked at Naruto.

"I've had a good time tonight," she admitted. "It was much better than I expected, though I shouldn't be surprised. You've always been a great guy."

"I had a good time as well," Naruto said with a smile.

"Do you want to see where this leads?" she asked quietly, looking away. "I like you now more than I did at the start of the date, and I wouldn't mind becoming more than friends. If we decide that we want to go back to being just friends, then we can do that. But I would like to have the chance to see if we can be more."

"I want that too," Naruto said, smiling even more.

The pair stopped just in front of Fairy Hills, and Cana took a step towards him. Realizing what she was planning, Naruto wrapped his arms around her, pulling her even closer. Their lips met for a couple seconds in a chaste kiss before the pair separated.

"Good night, Cana," he whispered as he released her and stepped away.

"You too," she said with a smile as she made her way to the doors of Fairy Hills.

As Naruto turned to leave, he saw that at least one person was looking outside the window of the room and had seen the kiss, but Naruto really could not care at that point. He was simply too happy to care.

* * *

Author's Note: Well, I didn't expect that chapter to come out the way it did, but I do think it's reasonable for Naruto and Cana to just suddenly get together. Getting together is just the first step, especially when both parties are easy going for the most part. Don't expect them to suddenly profess their love or start going at it like rabbits. They've just started dating, and it will mostly be innocent for a while.

Anyways, this is the final chapter until the Phantom Lord Arc begins. However, I do plan to take a break for a few days while I work on other projects. This obviously isn't my only ongoing project, and I need to be careful how I handle certain aspects of the Phantom Lord Arc in this story, so I can't risk rushing it.

On that note, there will be updates coming on the overhauled version of Kitsune of Fairy Tail.

Kitsune of Fairy Tail's overhaul hasn't been as worked on as intended because I've made a change to it that caused me to need to rework what I already had.

To further explain, Naruto will actually arrive in X782 instead of X784. This makes him 17 at the start of canon and 18 during the Fighting Festival Arc. It's also done that way because although he will retain the ability to use chakra and ninjutsu, his skill with it won't be enough to help him much against strong oppnents. As such, he'll need to learn to use magic during that time to actually make him strong enough to deal with powerful oppnents. He will also spend time trying to find out if there was anyway to return home before joining a guild. I will time-skip over most of that though.

Anyways, thanks for reading and reviewing.


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